Awestruck
by AmmyMcKay
Summary: Season 9 AU. Castiel is hunting. Dean acts like a dog. Sam is possessed. Let's get the boys together again before it's too late to fix heaven. Contains: OCs, Fairies, slow-building plot. There is/will be some Destiel, but it's not the focus.
1. Instinctive Drift

**Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural.  
A/N: Dean and Sam are working on the case in Episode 9.08, Rock and a Hard Place; some dialogue will be ad verbatim where it is important for the story. Differences become more and more pronounced as the story continues. Castiel is working on his own case which is equally important for the big plot. This fic is also posted on AO3 (more chapters are up there).**

 _Rexford, Idaho_

Cas woke up, but remained prone. Thinking was easier than facing the world because right now, his life sucked. For one, he wasn't in a room and he didn't have a bed. He had locked himself in the Gas-and-Sip last night because he had no place to go. He curled up in a sleeping bag in the break room because that was better than lying on the hard tile floor. He wondered when he had hit rock bottom or if, instead, he was falling into a bottomless pit.

The rejection from Nora last week, or rather, finding out that she wasn't interested in him past babysitting duty took a lot more out of him than he had expected. Then there was Dean's odd behavior when he was here. He seemed distracted at times, but nothing too worrying. It was only that, once again, he was reminded of the fact that he was exiled from Bunker for reasons he really couldn't understand. Finally, he decided it was time to get up. Go through the motions.

He groaned as he sat up. Sleeping in a sleeping bag in the supply closet made it sore and achy. Pain. He groaned and stretched his back, feeling some relief in the aching muscles. It was moments like this that he missed being an honest to goodness angel. Without his grace, he was simply a man.

He uncurled and started to roll up the sleeping bag and moved it into the spot behind the toilet paper on the storage shelves. "Dude, Steve, did you sleep in here?" It was Trey. Skinny-as-a-rail, tall, young, dark-skinned Trey. He was working through college.

"Uh," Cas adjusted his vest, hoping it didn't look like he hadn't washed it in the weeks he had worked here. "No." He was a terrible liar and that single word sounded so unconvincing in his gruff voice. His blue eyes attempted to look anywhere but the supervisor.

"Steve, did your roommate kick you out or something?"

"No." Then he realized that he had. After all, Dean had kicked him out of the Bunker.

Trey looked very, very unconvinced.

"Actually, yes." Cas admitted.

"You can't do that Steve."

He looked up at Trey, "It was one… night." The delivery of that sentence could not have been more awkward or unconvincing.

"Dude, you are really bad at lying." Trey said with a laugh. He straightened his expression and resumed with a serious tone, "But you really can't stay here, Steve."

Castiel allowed his mind to linger on that sentence. You can't stay here . Dean wanted him to sit out the impending war with the angels simply because he was now a man. Perhaps it was time to leave. After he did his duty as sales associate, of course.

He started working on cleaning the counters and opening the registers. After he did that, he gathered up his things.

The former angel walked to the office and rapped on the door. Trey poked his head out. "What?"

Cas said, "You're right. I… have to go."

"Wait, what?" Trey hurried out of the office so he stood in front of the former-angel.

Castiel took off his vest and handed it to his stunned former supervisor. "Tell Nora she was adequately kind to me and that I enjoyed life as a sales associate for the short time that I was one. It was… good practice."

"Steve?"

Cas headed out the door and waved his farewell.

"Steve! Get back here!"

Castiel refused to look back at the life he was leaving behind. It had been a nice break: to hide in plain sight, to have people mistake him for being human. He could go back to that, try to play at that. But somehow, after Dean's visit, after being face to face with another angel and realizing the gravity of the situation for angels, it wasn't satisfying or even ethical to stay here. Not when he was responsible. Trey's words this morning simply provided that final push.

* * *

 _I miss my wings._ Angels didn't have their wings anymore. What they had were tattered, broken things. Castiel didn't even have that. Instinctively, he flexed his shoulders and couldn't feel anything there. Cas didn't suppose that there was any way to get them back. No angel was able to teleport any more. Now, they all relied on traditional methods of transportation. For example, Castiel was on the side of a long, deserted highway sticking his thumb out and hoping for a ride. Fitting.

He wore his maroon hoodie. He had packed his things in a backpack: Toothbrush, toothpaste, bread, and water. His sleeping back was tied to the backpack securely. He had the FBI badge that Dean had made him in his back pocket as well as the money he had earned. He still wore the shirt he had worn under the vest when he worked at the Gas-and-Sip in Rexford, Idaho. And it looked a bit grubby and was wet under the armpits. He wasn't sure where he was headed, but he was now in Kansas and was definitely due for a shower. Eventually. The Bunker was achingly close, but he knew he was not welcome there. Dean wanted him away.

Cas found a sort of freedom out on the road. It reminded him of the Winchesters. Their lives were largely on the road. Hunting. He didn't think he could be a hunter, but what he could be was on the trail of the angels and figure out if there was a way to rejoin them or at least get his powers back.

Then perhaps the Dean would take him back because he'd be able to help them again.

* * *

 _Lebanon, Kansas_

In the bunker, Dean's phone started ringing. Sam was reading a book, researching a way to hopefully help his brother. He glanced up at Dean who was licking out a pudding cup. There was a blissful expression on his face as he lapped at the pudding for minutes. Sam looked concerned. And the mouth sounds in the otherwise quiet library were hard to listen to. "Dean."

No answer. Ever since he took that mind-meld potion, Dean's mind sometimes went elsewhere. And there would be glimpses of him being very animalistic. It was in the puppy dog expression in his eyes. In the way he whined when something didn't go his way. Urges that he couldn't control unless he had his mind sharp and ready. Once it wandered, he was doing something decidedly less than human. For example, one of the things he had taken to doing was chewing on objects.

"Dean." Sam said as he reached forward to hopefully take the pudding cup away from his brother. To his surprise and dismay, Dean's nose crinkled slightly in a possessive growl and there was a lack of humanity in his green eyes. Though, quickly he refocused and looked embarrassed for behaving in such a way.

The phone continued ringing.

Sam reached for the phone and answered it.

He heard a familiar voice on the other end. It was Jody. "Dean, took you long enough!"

"It's Sam."

"Oh."

Dean sat up, interested. Sam put Jody on speakerphone.

"So, I got a bit of an odd one for you."

The brothers glanced at each other, not entirely sure if they could handle a case right now, but the best way to move forward and pretend that nothing was wrong was to continue working on the family business.

"Shoot," Dean said.

"A small town I cover outside of Sioux Falls-only crime to speak of being the occasional cow tipping. Then last week...four people go missing."

"Alright, so what makes you think it's our kind of weird?"

They could hear a bit of bluster in Jody's voice. "I've got a witness who says he saw someone lift an SUV to nab a girl last night."

The boys looked to each other and had a silent, one second exchange with nothing but their expressions:

Dean's eyes lit up, eyebrows raised expectantly. _C'mon Sammy._

Sam shook his head. _No_. He was tired. Dean was still affected by a potion that messed with his mind. This was a bad idea.

Dean smiled and then leaned towards the phone. "We'll do it Jody." That earned him bitchface.

* * *

 _Ardent, Virginia_

Castiel hopped out of the pick-up truck at a middle-of-nowhere intersection in the Virginian woods and waved the driver goodbye. He wore a plain, black T-shirt and some cheap jeans. His sleeping bag had been traded away some clothes at a thrift store. His hoodie was unzipped. It was warm and humid today. Sweat glistened on his forehead, but he had showered two days ago in a cheap motel room. Not that anybody could tell with the layer of grime the dusty roads had left on his skin.

His feet had blisters and he limped as he walked down the road. The sun set and the sky darkened. It had been a couple of weeks since he quit his job at the Gas-and-Sip all the way in Idaho. The former angel looked haggard and thin. He had the barest essentials in his backpack: His money. Salt. A change of clothes. Toothbrush. Toothpaste. In the waning twilight, he pulled out his map to consult it. About five miles, that way. He looked down the road where it forked off deeper into the forest.

The fog hung thickly around the trees as he followed the winding country road. He heard a strange noise coming from his pocket, the horrible screech of a phone's speaker malfunctioning. He stopped and crumpled the map into his armpit as he took his phone out. He glanced down at his cellphone, a burner. It was going a little haywire. The screen was flickering in and out. It warbled and screeched. Noises that he had never heard a phone make before. And finally, silence. He stared at the cellphone for a few seconds.

Then, it started ringing so suddenly that it startled him. His breathing became uneven as his exhales came out as shuddering breaths. The phone was malfunctioning so much that he couldn't read the number, there was just a random bunch of letters and numbers flashing on the screen amid green and blue glitches. He touched the green button to answer and put the phone to his ear.

A tender voice, thready and weak, whispered, "Are you lost?" It was hard to hear, distorted so much that Cas had to focus to decipher the words.

"Yes," Castiel answered, honestly.

"The lost-" The electromagnetic interference caused the words to scratch and warp.

"Who are you?"

Nothing but static.

While he waited for the disembodied voice on the phone to speak again, the former angel was trying to look around and figure out where it was coming from. "My name is Castiel," he offered.

He took his phone away from his ear and saw that it was off. He tried turning it on, but that wouldn't work. He looked up at the canopy overhead, the thick green of trees, looking for any evidence of what could have caused the interference.

He could move on. But he considered what the Winchesters would do in this situation. They'd follow the clues and see where it led. And, though Cas just wanted to focus on the threat of an angel war, he knew that, in the end, he couldn't simply leave the mystery of the monster in this forest. If he had, what he would have left behind here would gnaw at him. Perhaps, it was because he had spent too long with the Winchesters: A bit of being a hunter rubbed off on him.

* * *

Dean was driving the Impala. Sam sat in the passenger's seat, a bit disturbed by the possibility that, at any moment, Dean may revert and Sam wasn't exactly sure he trusted the driving of a man whose mind could sometimes be mostly animal. Meanwhile, Dean was fretting over what was going on with Sam. He was broken and the only thing holding him together was an angel hijacking his body.

"Sammy," Dean said suddenly, feeling honest and also feeling like sticking his head out of the window on the freeway. "I'm sorry." As soon as it came out, the hunter flinched. He hadn't meant to say that.

Instead of Sam answering, his eyes flickered blue and his expression changed. His words came out stilted. This wasn't Sam. This was Ezekiel. "Sam isn't healed completely yet. We can't afford to be honest right now. He'll reject me and I'm the only thing keeping him alive."

Dean made the keening noise of a dog's whine. The sound started in his throat and whistled out of his nose. "I didn't mean to say it."

"It seems your mind is not completely human any longer, Dean," Ezekiel observed.

"I know I'm still suffering the after-effects of that potion, but it doesn't happen as often. I'm fine. I'm human."

Ezekiel frowned. Truthfully, he had seen the effects ebb and flow. Normally, it was subtle, but sometimes, when they hit Dean, they hit hard

"How long until Sammy's better, Zeke?" Dean asked, quietly. Realizing that, here, Ezekiel had all of the leverage. He was stupid for making a deal that he didn't fully understand, but he also felt he didn't really have any other options.

"Not too long. This is better as a secret. He'll reject me."

And with that, Ezekiel let Sam have control again. "Sorry about what Dean?" he asked, continuing the conversation from before the angel took over it.

He fumbled with what he was supposed to say before he offered up, "Last hunt. With Sonny. I shouldn't have kept all of that from you."

Sam smiled and looked at the road. "Don't sweat it. Any other big secrets?"

Dean set his jaw and focused on driving. He wanted to tell Sam everything, but telling him would mean losing him.

* * *

Castiel walked until he found his way to the motel. He limped to the reception desk and bought a room. He signed himself in as Steve Novak. He was at a loss for what to use for his name, but knew he couldn't stand here, trying to think of a name when all he wanted was to find a place to sit down. It wasn't Jimmy Novak. And it wasn't Castiel.

He went into his motel room. It was dinky. The wallpaper was peeling and he sat on the bed on the starchy sheets. He kicked off his worn shoes and socks before he tenderly touched his feet on the spots which were warm and sore. He looked at the blisters and wished that he still had his powers because then this wouldn't be an issue. His grace had been stolen from him, but he had nobody to blame but himself. He was stupid enough and naive enough to have been manipulated and tricked in the way that he had.

He shut his eyes and willed himself to be anywhere but here. He opened them and only saw the off-white of the motel ceiling.

* * *

 _Hartford, South Dakota_

Dean pulled up into the parking lot of Casey's Great Plains Diner. He parked the Impala next to Sheriff Mills' truck. They all left their vehicles and Jody opened her arms in a hug and the boys realized that they missed the warmth of another human being. Things had been awkward and tense at the Bunker and the ride over. Jody just being there seemed to melt that all away.

Dean grinned and then quipped, "Sheriff. Laying off the blind dates, I hope."

This immediately made Sheriff Mills recall her date with Crowley. She smiled and then chastised the younger man, "You bite your tongue, boy."

Dean's smile didn't fade. He enjoyed these fun teasing jabs he'd take at the people he cared about. Sam and Kevin weren't into it. Both too stressed and tired to remain fun as he did so.

Sam wanted to move on with the case so that Dean wouldn't slip up and reveal that something was wrong with him. "Hey, so?"

They got back on track.

Jody pointed to where the SUV had been. "So, car was right here, ass over teakettle. Now, normally, if somebody would tell me that one guy lifted an SUV, I'd tell him to take a flying leap, but after what I've seen…"

Sam gave a knowing nod. "Nothing's impossible."

"Uh-huh." Jody said.

Sam looked at Dean who, with Mills not looking, was scratching his head above his ear and leaning into it slightly. After making eye contact with Sam, he smiled sheepishly and felt he needed to add to this conversation to prove he had been listening. "This matches up with the other two how?"

Jody explained, "Well, four abductions, strong evidence left at every scene. Literally."

Sam checked his brother to make sure he was still focused. Dean rolled his eyes and sighed an almost imperceptible sigh. He was fine . He wasn't stupid. It was just sometimes, if he wasn't focused, he'd drift. It wasn't like he was becoming an invalid or it had too much of an effect on his hunting. It was his job to worry about Sam. Not the other way around.

The pause in the conversation became too conspicuous. Jody noticed, but before she could comment on that, Sam continued, keeping them focused on the case. "So, first vic was a pastor?"

As much as Jody wanted to ask the boys what was going on between them, she couldn't when they were talking about victims and the case. Personal feelings seemed woefully unimportant in comparison to people's lives. "Yeah. Door of his study was punched in. And then, the next two-an engaged couple."

Dean chimed in, "Locked bedroom window was ripped open."

"Mm-hmm. And then we have our waitress here with the topsy-turvy ride," Jody added.

"Any other connection among them?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. They were all members of Good Faith church here." Jody paused and then added, with a touch of embarrassment to her words, "My, uh, my church group back in Sioux Falls was in a tizzy over it."

"Hmm." Dean said.

"What?"

The hunter grinned. "I didn't peg you for churchy."

"Yeah. You know... Choking on the ladies' room floor 'cause of witchcraft kind of makes a higher power seem relevant." The date with Crowley was in the front of her mind because of Dean's mention of it earlier, but honestly, it was something she'd never truly forget.

Dean's face softened in concern. "Jody, are you sure you're, uh, to jump back in the fray?" All Jody could think was that Dean was too good at this.

"This wackadoo stuff keeps coming. More I know, better armed I'll be."

Dean nodded. Sometimes, the best way to cope was just to keep moving on and do what you can.

Again, Sam was trying to get things back on track. "Okay, so, we have, uh, missing church folk and super strength. Maybe angels harvesting vessels? Could be a Buddy Boyle type thing."

"Wh- angels? You're joking."

"Don't get your pants on fire. They suck," Dean said, thinking especially of the angel in Sam.

"You said there was a witness," Sam said.

Jody smiled sheepishly. "Yeah. Well… more or less."


	2. Adaptation

**A/N: Cas is continuing his case. He gets to meet the original character now. I hope you guys don't hate her. I promise she grows on you.**

 _Ardent, Virginia_

Castiel didn't have much he could do to research. He didn't have a ride and still relied on other people to move from place to place. And, he unfortunately didn't know anybody out here. It was frustrating and really limited his ability to hunt. Let alone figure out what the angels were up to and figure out a way to fix heaven. He stepped outside, a couple coins in hand, so that he could find something in the vending machine. Perhaps after he ate something, he'd feel good enough to work through what he could do in his situation.

When he got to the vending machine, he saw a woman wearing a long, green skirt. She was draped in necklaces of all lengths and several types of gemstones. She reminded Castiel of a Christmas tree. He saw that she was without a bra, just by seeing the shape of her breasts underneath her top, which was a simple dark-colored camisole. Her mousy brown hair looked wild and free as it cascaded down slim shoulders. She pounded against the machine before she sighed and pressed her forehead against the glass front of the machine, her Babe Ruth stuck.

She glanced at Cas. "What?" she asked, a bit of a bite in her words due to machine vexing her.

"I was going to get some crackers." His gravelly voice was deeper than she had expected.

"Don't. This machine's a piece of shit trying to cheat me out of my money. That's the _second time_ this week." She gave it one final kick in an effort to somehow best the vending machine.

"The machine is not sentient."

"What?" her tone of voice was more from the utter disbelief that Castiel had to point that out, but the former angel read it as her not knowing the definition.

"It does not have a mind or free will. It is unable to perceive or feel…"

The young woman glanced at Castiel with an incredulous look to her gray eyes. "No, really? I wouldn't have guessed."

"It's a good thing I came over then to explain," the former angel said with a straight face. He thought of the first time he had to use a phone to contact Dean. He continued, "Like you, electronics, machines used to perplex me."

"Hon, I was being sarcastic." She tilted her head and studied him. "You aren't from around here?"

"No."

"Me either." She smiled and stuck her hand out. "Well, then, I'm lively."

He took it and then said, confusion in his voice, "I am also alive."

The young woman laughed and then said. "My name's Lively. Well, my nickname anyways, but I'm fond of it." Her expression was bright as she spoke.

"Oh, my name is Cas-" He shut his eyes and sighed, feeling stupid for slipping up already. He blamed the strange conversation they had for disorienting him. "I mean Steve."

"Huh," she said flippantly. "You're weird." Lively slapped the vending machine one more time. Her candy did not budge so she pouted.

"It's stuck," he observed.

"Well, no shit."

"So it doesn't work?"

"Out of order," Lively confirmed. "So, do you have money?"

"Yeah."

"Wanna order a pizza?"

* * *

 _Hartford, South Dakota_

All that the Winchesters knew from interviewing Slim, the homeless man who had seen one of the victims disappear, was that there was a blue flame. Now, they were focused on following the other lead: That all of the victims so far had gone to the same church: Good Faith Church.

Dean and Sam sat across the desk of Bonnie Futchko. She folded her hands on top of the desk, all smiles. She was modestly dressed. Her red hair was down and the headband she wore gave her a chaste, and rather naive appearance. "We hope you enjoyed the tour. Any questions before we get you boys registered?"

Dean sniffed the air and then his face screwed up in a suppressed grimace, which earned a jab at the ribs from Sam. He wiped at his nose and glared at Sam. _My nose was itchy._

Miss Futchko watched the two of them carefully, waiting for either a question or a confirmation that they didn't have questions.

Sam awkwardly began: "Uh, yeah, uh, look, um, Ms. Futchko-"

"Oh, please... Bonnie will do just fine." She remained chipper.

"Bonnie. Okay, um, we...love the church. We do. But...Well, we've heard that a few members have gone missing, and, to be honest...that kind of scares us."

"Let me assure you, with our increased security, Good Faith has never been safer. And those people who have gone missing, well, they are front and center in our prayers." She said, putting too much enthusiasm in her words.

Dean jumped in, to prove to Sam that he was fine, "What a relief. Now, you must have been, uh, close to them." Sam, of course, watched his brother.

"Well, we do share the A.P.U. bond."

"The A.P.U. bond?" Dean's eyebrows lifted, curious that this could be a new direction.

Bonnie nodded and continued. "Our chastity group... _Abstinence Purifies Us._ "

The Winchesters exchanged a glance. _Virgins._ Dean gave a lewd grin. Sam, of course, remained on task. "Oh. W-wow. You mind if we sit in on that, maybe see if it's for us?"

Bonnie smiled apologetically, "I'm afraid it's members only. I'm sorry, but it can get pretty personal."

"Then count us in."

The cheerful woman clapped her hands together in eagerness. "Well. I'll be a squirrel in a skirt. I'll be back in a jiff with the papers."

The brothers quietly discussed the possibility that they were hunting a dragon due to the flames and the fact that it seemed that an important component to this hunt was that the victims were virgins.

In a short time, Bonnie came back with some forms that she retrieved from a filing cabinet. She handed each brother a clipboard. "All righty. Just sign here and your purification can begin."

Sam read the form. "Purity pledge?"

"It's a commitment to your virginity," Bonnie added helpfully.

Dean laughed and then said, "I don't think we can really un-ring that bell. You know what I mean?"

The woman seemed a bit taken aback, but continued, "Oh. I see. Well... If you just ask for God's forgiveness for your sins and make a new vow of chastity, well, then, you'll be born again as a virgin in his eyes."

"So, you just hit the 'virginity do-over' button, and all is good with the man upstairs?" Dean asked. Mostly because it seemed a bit ridiculous.

Bonnie gasped. "It's not a button! And...this isn't just a piece of paper. I mean, this is your clean slate, your chance to be a virgin until marriage."

Dean smiled and said, "Well, you had me at 'clean slate.' Let's do this."

Both Sam and Dean signed their names on the forms and then handed them back to Bonnie.

"Congratulations. You are now virgins."

Dean smiled at Sam. He wondered how long that would last.

* * *

The boys left the church and sat in the Impala. Dean glanced at Sam. "You kept looking at me in the room there, Sammy."

"I'm just trying to be careful."

He started the car. "Sammy, I'm fine. I'm good. You should be worried about yourself."

"Why do you say that?"

"You look tired. From the trials and all," Dean replied, but he refused to look Sam in the eyes. He tried to make it seem like it was because he was too busy keeping his attention on the road ahead. "The potion's probably wore off by now."

Sam drew his mouth into a line. "Sure Dean, that's what you've been saying for the past few weeks. And then you rolled in a mud puddle at Sonny's, remember that? Oh, and then you chewed my wallet. _My wallet,_ Dean."

"Oh, come on!"

"It was _bad."_ Sam would have given Dean bitchface if he wasn't so concerned for his brother's mental state. "Look, Dean, I'm worried."

"Don't be. I'm fine." Dean shrugged. He didn't want to admit that it took a lot for him to not grimace at the scent of Bonnie's too-heavy perfume and how it masked the subtle scent of smoke. There was a reason hunters didn't smoke, it'd make them too easy for monsters to track. Though, when he thought about it, the scent reminded him more of a fireplace than cigarettes.

* * *

Castiel opened the box of the freshly delivered pizza that he had purchased. He quickly grabbed a slice and offered one to Lively, but she was distracted by the container of salt on the table next to his flashlight and lighter.

She tilted her head toward it. "Yours, I presume? I didn't get the complimentary sea-salt with my room."

He grabbed it quickly along with the other items and put it on the kitchen counter.

She noticed that there was a scattering of salt on the table. "One hundred thirty-four," she said as she wiped the salt away with her hand.

"What?"

She shrugged. "That's how many there were. I'm like Rain Man when it comes to counting things."

" _Rain Man?"_

"Really? You know. With Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman?"

He looked lost and simply shrugged.

"Wow." Lively said. "Really?" She finally picked up a slice, took a bite. "At least it's still hot."

* * *

Castiel ate the pizza quietly with Lively. They were at the small table beside the window. The light from the afternoon sun filtered through the window. The shadows from the panes cast long lines on the floor and table.

"The pizza guy just delivered our pizza," Castiel remarked, trying to make conversation.

"Uh, yeah. That's what he does. Were you expecting something more?" the young woman asked.

"Uh, sex, maybe," Castiel replied, bluntly.

"Sex?" Lively said slowly, trying to confirm if she heard that right.

"Sex is quite enjoyable. So is this slice of pizza," he took a bite.

Lively laughed. "You're a weird guy, Cas-or-Steve."

"You can pick one, you know. My name, I mean."

"Then Cas. It's a lot more interesting than Steve. And I'm sure it's your real name anyways. Or, rather, what you'd prefer to be called if given a choice."

She was right. Dean called him Cas. He wasn't sure how much he liked her calling him that yet.

"So, how much do I owe you for the pizza?" the woman asked, wiping her hands on a paper napkin.

Cas shook his head. "It's okay."

"Well, now I owe you a favor."

"A favor," Cas repeated. "Well. Do you have a laptop?"

"Yes."

"Can I have it?"

Lively looked crossly at Castiel. "You know, three slices of pizza is not worth a laptop."

"Oh. Right," he said, seemingly lost in thought. He was thinking about what favor could possibly be worth three pieces of pizza.

"Look, I can bring it over if you wanted to look something up." She got up to retrieve her laptop from her room. "But I'm the only one touching it."

* * *

Cas put the leftovers away in the small fridge. He started cleaning up and then heard a knock on the door. He let Lively in. She had a small white laptop tucked under her arm. She sat at the table with Castiel, who pulled a chair up. She typed her password and logged into her laptop. "So, what did you need to do with the laptop?"

"Research," Castiel answered, simply.

"Of what?"

"Local legends or something." He wasn't sure how this hunting thing worked. At least on his own.

Lively typed something into the search engine, but couldn't find anything that caught Castiel's eye. She sighed in frustration. "More specific, Cas."

"Specific?"

"What are you looking for exactly?" she clarified.

"Deaths. Or missing persons." Castiel said after thinking things through. If there was some electromagnetic interference, that usually met a ghost. He tried to remember what Dean did when he was watching him. "Someone lost in the forests here?"

The girl brought her right leg up and propped an arm on her knee. Her skirt was long enough that it draped and hid everything, even in this awkward position. Castiel sat stiffly, watching the screen, his cobalt eyes flicking back and forth as he quickly read the links that Lively was clicking on. There had been several missing persons actually. The deaths in the forests weren't too common, but seemed to be what one would expect for people lost in the woods: Animal attacks, exposure to the elements, et cetera. It seemed random. The distance they were from the local towns and villages. How they died. It could really just be people who had wandered into the woods and gotten lost. There would be years when the rate of it increased, and then that was usually after one of the towns expanded or bought property. Perhaps it was a ghost that was an environmentalist?

The former angel was not one to be deterred. He knew that there was something out in the woods. A ghost or something, but he didn't know who. But if these people had their bodies found, then they would have been haunting closer to town, not out in these woods. Castiel was racking his brain. He did not have a hunter's instinct just yet. And it just turned into a game of _What would Sam and Dean Winchester Do?_

"Any of this what you're looking for?" The young woman asked.

He sighed. "I think I'll have to go into the woods to figure it out."

"Can I come with?" Lively asked.

"No." The answer was immediate. Final. No negotiations. Castiel was going to bring salt, some matches, lighter fluid, and his angel blade. He knew it was risky, but he would survive, surely. He had survived worse after all.

Lively pouted.

* * *

Jody was typing away on the laptop when Sam came in from the A.P.U. meeting. There was no Dean. She had hoped that both Winchester brothers would come because there was quite a few things she had wanted to ask them. For example, that awkwardness between the two of them when they first met up with her.

But, once again, Sam was on top of things. "Hey."

When there was something to talk about, it seemed that neither Winchester allowed anybody an opening.

Jody saw that she'd have to force one. She wasn't as good as Dean had been, easily just asking her what her issue was. But, then again, she wasn't as guarded as the two of them. "So what's going on between the two of you?"

Sam looked shocked that she had asked. "Nothing. I've been worried about Dean lately. He keeps telling me that I'm worrying over nothing."

"What happened?" Jody asked, concerned.

"Nothing bad. A case shook him up a bit." Sam tried to change the subject. "He's afraid of flying, you know." It had nothing to do with anything they had done recently, but Sam hoped that Jody would just connect the two and stop asking questions.

"So where is he now?" Jody asked.

"With Suzy, the chastity counselor. Dean swears he's seen her somewhere before. I'm pretty sure he's just going to try to have sex with her."

"The _chastity_ counselor?"

Sam smiled and then said, "Yep. Only Dean would go to a church abstinence meeting and try to hook up with the counselor." He segued quickly into the subject of the case before Jody could comment on the topic further, "So, about the church meeting. It turned into confessional. Two of our vics-Honor and Pastor Fred-did the dirty."

"Oh, well. They're not the only ones. Barb Blanton, our missing bride to be-"

"Yeah?"

Jody continued, "Her mom said she heard Barb and her fiancé in Barb's bedroom."

Sam could see where this was headed. "Going at it?"

"Well, she said she heard sex noises, then Barb crying, then Neil telling Barb it didn't count because it was under 30 seconds."

He chuckled.

"And then, two hours later, she heard a smash and saw a flash of light under the door."

"Blue light?"

Jody nodded and then added, "You know, I'm thinking whatever this thing is, it's not going after virgins, even born-again virgins."

"It's taking virgins who break their chastity vow. So dragons are off the list."

"Dragons?" Jody said. She shook her head in disbelief. "I'm sorry, those are a thing?"

"Yeah," Sam replied.

* * *

Dean was looking through one of Suzy's drawers, finding a stash of _Casa Erotica_ DVDs. He raised his eyebrows. He did not expect that. His phone rang and he answered it now that Suzy was in the bathroom. It was Sam. "Hey," Dean said as he realized that the girl on the front of the DVDs was Suzy herself.

"What's going on?"

"I found something _big._ "

There was a lewdness to Dean's voice that caused Sam to sigh on the other end. "Yeah, well, so did we. So, get this: It's not a dragon."

"Huh. Hmmm." Dean pinned the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he studied the DVD covers. He heard Suzy coming out of the bathroom. "Hey, gotta go."

She came into view as he hid the DVDs behind his back. He smiled. He knew that there was only one way tonight was ending and that was sex with a porn star. And, as predicted, his virginity was not going to last very long.

* * *

Castiel was in the woods, holding the cellphone, he had packed salt, matches, some lighter fluid, and he had his silver angel blade hidden up his sleeve. The sun had set. He stepped through the woods, his feet still sore, but he was determined. "Hello?" he called into the woods.

No answer. He had been walking forever and cast his flashlight from tree to tree. Not finding anything he went to turn around, following the same path he was on. Except it didn't lead back to the motel.

His feet were hurting and he just wanted to sleep. Perhaps ask Dean what this strange entity in the woods was if he was so inclined. Then, his flashlight started to flicker. He put it away. So, now the ghost was here.

His phone chimed. Someone was calling him. He picked up the call and put the phone against his ear, trying to concentrate on the garbled words.

"Are you lost?"

He put it on speaker phone. "What's your name?" Castiel said.

"Why do..." and then the whisper was lost to static. "-sss-"

The voice on the other end stopped talking, then there was the first clear sound on his phone: a giggle. And then, Castiel could only hear the dead silence.

He glanced up and saw a small blue light flickering behind some trees like fire. Its movement was erratic and caused the shadows to dance confusingly. Castiel gripped the angel blade in his hands, cautious. Was this a ghost then? He slowly went to follow it and as he did so, it darted in the trees. As he passed some, he noticed what looked like scratches on the trees. Keeping his eyes open, he noticed that there were portions underneath the scratches which were always carved into the trees. There was some sort of symbol carved into the bark of the trees and someone or something had defaced them all. He pulled his phone out, but it wouldn't work in the way he wanted. Electromagnetic interference. He put his fingers against three evenly spaced holes, reminiscent of the points of a triangle.

As he moved, he noticed this on more and more trees. Three holes in an area where someone had scratched out a symbol.

"You still there? Look, I just want to figure out… what you are."

"I like it here." The voice came through Castiel's phone in its soft whisper. "Forbidden-" The voice disappeared with the interference again. Seconds passed of nothing but white noise and then, clearly, "-Castiel?"

"Do you remember your name?"

The fire stopped darting away from him. Castiel approached the fire and was close enough to touch it, but he didn't.

The whisper was quiet as it answered, "Y-sss."

"What do you want?"

"Be honest," this time, the voice sounded whispered into his ear. Castiel could swear he felt the hot breath on his right earlobe. It prickled the hair on the back his neck.

"Honest about what?"

No answer.

All Castiel could think was to offer a confession to the spirit. Perhaps he needed that to be the right answer because right now, he felt guilty for everything he had done. "I… am no angel. I've made mistakes. Mistakes that hurt those I cared about. My family. My friends. And I'm ill-equipped to even attempt reparations. And I just want to _fix_ things."

The blue fire suddenly started moving quickly. He chased after it doggedly and then, when it disappeared, he saw the motel. The neon sign flickering with the missing letters, but proudly proclaiming that there was still vacancy. "Huh," Castiel said. He went to his room, feeling like an idiot for not finding anything and then settled on his bed, sound asleep. He was exhausted.

* * *

Lively knocked on the door later that night.

He mumbled awake. Finally, he rose and then walked to the door to open it. He saw his newly acquired friend, though now she was wearing a gauzy nightgown instead of the long, patterned skirt and the top she wore earlier. Her hair was in a messy updo. And she was barefoot. She was braless and Cas could see the shape of her nipples through the pale fabric of her nightgown. She had no shame about how she looked.

"What is it?"

"So, what did you find in the woods?" she asked.

Castiel looked at her. "Couldn't this wait til morning? I need sleep now."

"Well, _obviously_ it could," Lively said. "But I need sleep, too. And I can't sleep until you tell me about what you found. And a girl needs her beauty rest, you know?"

"Nothing. I was just lost for a few hours and then found my way back."

"You know, I can help, right? I don't know what you're up to, but it looks fun."

Cas shook his head again. "I can do this on my own," he said gruffly. He had to do this on his own. He couldn't just hand it off to someone else. Hunting was a strange and dangerous endeavor. It was a world that most people would be better off not knowing.

"You know, you don't have to do it alone." Her voice was sweet and small. "I can help."

Cas gave her a pained smile.

"Please, I insist," the woman said.

Reluctantly, Cas stepped aside and let her in. She made herself comfortable at his table, sitting with one leg up as she seemed to always wont to do.

Cas shut the door and then headed to the bed. Lively's head was canted and her eyes were staring softly at his feet. "You're limping."

"Blisters," Cas said simply.

"That's interesting."

"What is?"

"You seem like you're used to wandering. There's something hard about you. Weathered. Hurt and broken, but strong. You were a soldier perhaps? But your body isn't used to it. How can that be?" She mused aloud. "Sorry, I'm just observant. I've had a lot of practice."

"A soldier… yes." _When I was an angel._

"How about this? Let me see your feet."

She was on the floor before Cas could actually give her permission. Her hands were gentle as she pulled off his socks and he let her. She winced as she saw his feet. They were rubbed raw in some places. She touched a tender area where fluid collected under his skin on his soles. Bad blisters. "Where did you serve?" She asked because he didn't have soldier's feet, yet there was honesty and pain in his admitting to be one. Memories so strong that one could not hide them.

"Uh." He averted his eyes. Castiel didn't know what to say. He wasn't a soldier in any branch of the military that he could name. He wasn't very good at lying.

She glanced up at him. "A deserter then?"

"I guess. Yeah." His mind was busy with the things he had done. With how far he had fallen. With how often he had hurt Dean and Sam with his mistakes. Did he desert heaven? All he knew was that he was separated from it. Did he want to get back there? Well, first he needed to fix it. He thought of calling them. Just to hear their voices. Especially Dean, who had banished him from the Bunker. Cas was at his weakest, but he didn't have his friends with him.

Lively understood that she might have overstepped her bounds when the silence lasted too long. "Forgive me, Cas. I didn't intend to make you uncomfortable."

"No, it's fine. I just. You reminded me that I need to call someone." He moved to stand up.

"Don't. Just stay there; I'll get your phone."

"Why are you doing this?" Castiel asked.

Lively looked at him. "Because. I owe you."

"For… what?"

"For the pizza," she said. She rolled her eyes, as if she couldn't believe Castiel had already forgotten.

"But, I thought we were okay. You did some research for me."

Lively shrugged, "Yeah, all I did was look up some things on the laptop for you. It didn't even really help you." She lifted her gray eyes to look at Castiel.

He looked back at her. The quiet air between them was stifling. Lively stood up from off of the floor. "You want me to leave."

The former angel nodded.

"Why didn't you say so?" Lively grinned.

"Uh."

"You're too polite, hon." She smiled as she left the motel room, leaving Cas alone again.

* * *

Dean lay next to Suzy after some really good sex. Or perhaps he could call her Carmelita because that was who she was in the _Casa Erotica_ DVDs. "I gotta say… I really missed that," Suzy said. She stood up and Dean leaned to watch her naked ass as she bent over to pick up her clothes. She tucked a lock of her blonde hair behind her ear and shyly looked to Dean, who finally got up to dress himself.

She walked over before he put his shirt on and put her hand on his chest. She tried to ignore some of the scars he had, but his chiseled body made her feel hot and bothered. She focused on the tattoo near her fingertips. "That's really cool." She wore just a well-fitted tee-shirt over a sports bra and some terry shorts.

Dean nodded. "It is."

"What does it mean?" Suzy asked.

"That my body is my own." And he painfully remembered how he allowed an entity to possess Sam. While Ezekiel wasn't a demon, he was still within Sam and sometimes took control over his brother. He was putting a lot of trust in an angel that he didn't know too well, but who seemed eager to help.

"Huh," Suzy said as she pulled up her hair. "Now, that's something I believe in as well. It's sort of why I wanted to do this chastity vow thing. Reclaim myself…"

She looked to Dean because he wasn't answering her. His expression puzzled her. He was intently focused on the door. His nostrils flared and that intensity wouldn't leave him. And then a _growl_ left his throat.

"Uh, Dean?"

It was like he wasn't listening to her; his mind was elsewhere. He grabbed her hand too tightly.

"Dean!" She snatched her hand away and that caused the hunter to let go of her. "What's wrong with you?"

His nose crinkled in a snarl. He couldn't speak at the moment, but his mind was sharp, thoughts whirring through it at a fast pace. Though how human those thoughts were, even he wasn't sure. Dean looked to Suzy, who was panicking because the man she had just had sex with was going insane, acting like a beast, and she had no clue why. He pushed it all back, trying to regain his human mind again and then said, "I'll protect you."

"From what?" Suzy said, confused and afraid.

And with that, the door was shattered open and blue fire filled their senses. And then, they were gone.

* * *

Jody glanced up from the laptop to see Sam putting his jacket on. "What's up?" she asked.

"This thing is taking people who break their vows, right?"

"Yeah."

"Dean and Suzy. It's been over an hour."

Jody stood up, realizing the implication. "Right." She started putting her jacket on.

Suzy came to before Dean did. She was lying down on the dirty floor of the underground room. She heard the hysteria of Barb, a victim who had been abducted before she was. She was crying and was attempting to claw her way out. Her fingertips were bleeding from trying to work through the stone walls. "Let us out! Let us out!" Her voice had gotten hoarse.

Honor crossed her arms and watched helplessly. "What are you doing?"

Neil tried to comfort his fiancée, Barb, but it was obvious that he was just as desperate as she was. However, he had, for the most part, simply given up.

"There has to be a way out," Barb said.

Suzy recognized the voices from people who she led in the A.P.U. group. She slowly lifted her torso off of the ground and her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She noticed Dean beside her. He was unconscious, but made small whimpering noises, as if he were being plagued by nightmares.

She was almost afraid of awakening him, remembering the strange change in expression he had and how he had seemingly become something other than completely human-mentally, at least. But then she remembered his promise to protect her. She touched his shoulder. "Hey Dean."

He jerked awake and looked at her with that strange, lost, and animal expression. She could see it in the barely light of the dungeon. In the way he lifted himself and in the weight of his silence.

"Dean?" she asked.

He shook his head, as if to shake that inhuman part of him out of his mind. It seemed to have worked because he asked, "Uh, where are we?"

Neil hugged his sobbing wife-to-be as he answered for the group. "Hell."

* * *

Sam was in Suzy's apartment. He had the _Casa Erotica_ DVDs in his hands. He was trying to piece together what could have happened here, but there was scant evidence. At least he knew that Dean was here. And that they had definitely did the deed. Jody came into the apartment after interviewing the neighbors.

"Hey," Sam said.

"Hey."

"Neighbors see anything?"

"Flash of blue," the sheriff replied.

"Huh." His voice sounded far away. Sam had no clue where his brother was.

"You sure Dean was here?" Jody could see the weight of his worrying on his shoulders, but she also wanted to make sure that Sam wasn't holding onto any sort of false hope.

Sam held up the DVDs. "Oh, yeah. And I think he crossed someone off his bucket list."

* * *

In the dark room, Dean was up on a ladder, trying to work through the trapdoor. He pushed and pushed at it.

"It's no use," Neil said. "We tried. There's no escape."

"Are we going to run out of air?" Suzy asked.

Neil shook his head. "I don't think so. Somebody wants us to die nice and slow."

Dean noticed that there were only three victims in here, other than himself and Suzy. "There was one more, right?" He seemed too calm for the situation.

"Pastor Fred was in here," Honor said, a note of rising terror in her voice. "It took him after he, um."

"What took him?" Dean asked.

"We couldn't see exactly. It was… it was so bright. Like it was on fire."

"I'll get you out," Dean said. He looked around in the darkness, at the people below him, frightened out of their minds.

"How!" Neil said, his voice was strained with fear. It wasn't a question, more of an assertion that there was no way out.

Dean grunted as he tried and failed to open the trapdoor again, and then said, "I'm working on it."


	3. Symbiosis

**A/N: Enjoy the story. It's a slow building story with an overarching plot, but they'll do little cases along the way. Yay, fun times.**

 _Hartford, South Dakota_

Sam and Jody were back in the hotel. It was the best that they could do at the time because there was still nothing that they could do without more knowledge. Jody's eyes were intent on the laptop screen. "Hey. Virgins, fire-sound familiar?"

Sam hovered close to her. She could hear his soft exhale. "Vesta, Roman Goddess of the Hearth," he read aloud.

"In ancient Rome, six virgins were dedicated to this chick every year. Their main duty was to tend Vesta's hearth."

"Wait, so, fire is connected to virginity?"

"Yeah, the girls had to be pure because fire is the symbol of purity."

"Huh. Okay, as long as Vesta's fire was kept lit, Rome received a good harvest." All of this had to do with a good harvest? Then again, throughout history, people have had funny ideas about sacrifice, offerings, and a good harvest. Keeping a fire lit with virgins tending to it was the least violent one he had heard. There were a few close calls that he and Dean had with gods and the notion of fertility.

Jody scrolled down, trying to find the pertinent information that would ease Sam's fears. What she was looking for was a chance. She read aloud, "The virgins had to stay celibate for 30 years. If they broke their vows, they were buried alive."

Buried _alive_. So there was a chance they could find him, but it also frustrated Sam because he had no way of trying to locate his brother at this time. He could be buried _anywhere_.

Sam heard his phone ringing. He glanced at the screen. It was not Dean. It was a number he didn't know. He didn't care who it was. Right now, it wasn't Dean. He pressed the red button and that was that.

Ezekiel, who was the entity who possessed Sam, felt the man's mind was in turmoil. This happened often in a hunt and he wondered why they put themselves in such dangerous situations. However, he noted that there was a sharp attachment that the men had for each other. One that meant that being apart was inherently more frightening than being together. Facing that violent ghost at Sonny's was easier than what Sam was facing now: The possibility that he may never see his brother again.

* * *

 _Ardent, Virginia_

Castiel was sitting on the bed, his cell phone against his ear as he waited for Sam to pick up. He looked at the phone when he realized that Sam must not be answering calls right now. He had tried Dean first, but there was no answer. That time, the phone rang out and when he was prompted to leave a voice mail, he hung up. Defeated, Castiel crumpled on the bed. He was without his wings, without his powers, without the Winchesters. Completely and utterly alone.

Lively was an interesting character, a bit too bold in her interactions with him, if he was honest. It was enough to unnerve him, but also inspire him. He glanced at the phone one more time. He had to do _something_. He called Dean again, leaving a voicemail this time. An awkward one.

"Uh, was that the beep? Hello? Uh, Dean, it's Cas. I'm trying to figure out the human thing." He paused. "Right now I'm hunting something. I haven't figured it out yet. I… really miss you, Dean." He let too much emotion hang in his gruff voice for that final sentence. Quickly, he hung up the phone, leaving the message abrupt, and fell backwards onto his bed. He shut his eyes and thought of those moments when he'd appear in front of Dean. So close he could count the freckles on his face. And then Dean would complain about his personal space. He opened his eyes again and saw the off-white ceiling of the motel room. Castiel frowned. _Still human._

* * *

Dean hopped off of the ladder. All he had managed to do was get his arms sore from trying to push the trap door open. "Son of a bitch." He was getting upset. He started pacing again. Separated from Sam, he realized just how much being surrounded by someone who had some knowledge about his condition was just better for him. He constantly set out to prove to Sam that there was nothing wrong because he had more motivation to do so. He didn't want Sam to worry. It was harder to focus on the task of acting human when his little brother wasn't there. And though Suzy gave him a good night, she didn't know him and only thought he was crazy when he indulged in his strange behavior. It made him feel insane and that just fed into his torment. He was stressed and it took everything not to start howling in desperation. He knew that that would freak the other victims out. Though they were already quite freaked.

"Dean," Suzy said, trying to snap him out of it. Earlier, he had been the one that seemed the most competent. Now, he looked a second away from a meltdown.

"What!" he snapped. And then, he saw that Suzy's expression. He cringed and avoided eye contact. "Sorry."

"Is there anyway out?"

He gave her an odd expression. He played with the idea of telling her because it was so much easier to be honest. Then again, he survived forty years of torture in Hell. This was nothing. This was easy in comparison. "No… but Sammy can get us."

"From A.P.U.? Your brother?"

"Yeah… We sort of do this. We just need to tell him where we are."

Her voice had helped him focus again. Dean found that when he was kept occupied,thinking, then it was easier to remain completely human. He put his hand in his pockets. "Son of a-"

"What's wrong?" Suzy asked.

"They took my phone."

The blonde's face fell. "Dean. Maybe God wants us down here - because of what we did. This is our punishment-"

Dean smiled as he pulled out a second phone. "Lucky I carry a spare. And Suzy-" Dean reached for her shoulder comfortingly, "This isn't God's work."

She looked at him, hope dead in her eyes.

He tried to sniff out where they were. He could smell _everything_ , but he couldn't sift through the scents that slapped his senses and discern where they were. It wasn't working. _Why not?_ He inhaled deeply again and then snorted the air out of his noise sharply.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to figure out where we are, but it's not working." He remembered in Enid, the case in which he started this whole mind-meld mess he got himself into, he had sharper senses. He was, also, not attempting to quash them at any given opportunity. Then, he had let himself indulge in his instincts a bit more and it made him able to sniff out even cancer. He looked around in the dark room that they were in. Then, Dean had a revelation. "Here." He found some paper and balled it up. "Throw this." He handed it to Suzy.

Suzy held it in her hands. "Uh, why?"

She was making him second guess himself, but he persevered. If this worked, then it would help tremendously. "Because I'm weird. Just do it."

She tossed it feebly and Dean went after it and picked it up and came back. It didn't feel the same. It didn't feel right. He whined the keening sound that went from his chest and up through his nose. _Wait, I'm almost there._ He cleared his throat and cleared his mind before he could speak. "Again, Suzy."

She dropped it on the floor. "Dean, this is stupid. We need to get out of here."

Dean sighed. "I know it's stupid. It's just-"

Honor, cleaved herself from the wall she was leaning against, quietly picked the ball up and tossed it. Reflexively, Dean went after it and came back, handing it back to Honor without glancing up at her.

He continued the conversation just where he left off. "- that I'm… going through something. And-"

Amused, Honor had tossed the paper ball again. Dean ran after it and brought it back. His words stopped working and he glanced from Honor to the ball of paper expectantly. This time she withheld it. He gave an inquisitive noise. Something between a grunt and a whine as he tilted his head.

"Oh my God," Suzy said, unabashedly taking the name of the Lord's name in vain. She remembered his odd behavior in her bedroom. The way that he _growled_ at the door. That animal expression in his eyes. And now he was playing _fetch_. "He's a dog."

* * *

Sam's phone rang loudly as Jody was typing on the computer, trying to find underground places to search for Dean and the other victims. Sam answered immediately. "Dean?"

"Sam! Sammy!"

The smile on Sam's face was a joy and relief as he heard his brother's voice on the other end. "Dean, hey."

Jody noticed how easily they brothers were able to get back to business now that they were back in contact with each other.

Dean's voice crackled with static. He didn't have the best service. "I'm-"

"Underground?" Sam finished.

"Yeah-" his voice was coming in and out. "Smells like manure-Rotted wood. Old hay. I think… we're-" And the words were too hard to hear. Sam was so desperate. He heard the whistle of a train and then nothing except for static fighting the words Dean was trying to say.

"Dean? Dean! Say it again!" But the phone hung up. Wherever Dean was, he had horrible reception. Sam looked up to Jody, the expression in his eyes was crushed. "I lost him."

"What?"

"I heard a train. Dean was talking about…" He let his words drift, but then got back on track. "I guess... look for a barn? And, and…"

Jody was typing on the computer. Her fingers were a flurry on the keyboard. "It's okay, Sam, we've got him. The old Wimmer farm."

She and Sam both got up to leave, putting their coats on.

"Wait," tall Winchester said. "Anything on a weapon?"

Jody checked the laptop. "Oak stained in virgin blood. Where are we gonna get a virgin?"

"I'm a virgin!"

She grinned. "I think we need the real McCoy here, Sam."

"Okay, I think I know someone." Sam planned to head over to the church to meet up with someone from the A.P.U. and hopefully convince her to give blood.

* * *

Castiel lay on his side. He turned over, fretful and unable to find sleep. He was obsessing over the fact that neither Winchester had answered his call. Quietly, he considered the fact that they didn't need him anymore. He was shuffled away in the way that the others who flitted in and out of the Winchesters' lives had been. He had always thought he was different. That, even when he stopped being useful, they'd keep him around. But it seemed that he was wrong.

His eyes felt burning, so he wiped them. _Tears._ Human emotions were strange. Raw and intense. He had never felt anything like this. He remembered the rollercoaster of emotions that Nora had sent him on. The hope that perhaps she loved him and then the crushing realization that she didn't. He didn't understand the stigma of being homeless-as he was hired through a program that was to help the homeless. All he knew was that she called him special and a hard worker and apparently, that wasn't good enough.

Despite that, Dean pushing him out of the Bunker hurt more. Dean telling him to keep his nose out of angelic matters hurt more. To keep himself away from hunting. It made him feel inadequate. Unworthy.

He needed to go out and walk. He got up to his feet and headed out after pulling his socks and shoes on. He put on his dark red hooded sweatshirt and zipped it shut. He walked outside.

Perhaps all he needed was to get on with this hunt, solve this supernatural mystery of people disappearing in the woods, of the ghost that had its voice in the phone, of the fire in the woods. He glanced up and saw it, a blue flame flickering between the trees as he hugged the cheap sweatshirt closer to his body.

He watched quietly, needing to strain his eyes to study the strange light, it was so far away and dim. He was searching for the figure again, but couldn't see anything. Castiel sighed as he pushed his hands into his pockets. He wished for his powers again, so that he could go after it, but now, he felt powerless. He retreated back into the motel. He couldn't do anything out here.

* * *

The meeting had not gone well. The woman accused them of being Pagans and threatened to call the police until Jody punched her in the face. Bloody nose worked just as well as having her cut her hand and bleed onto the oaken stick. Blood was blood after all.

Jody held the weapon-the oaken stick stained in virgin blood-as Sam drove the Impala to the barn. She couldn't help but feel jealous that they both cared that much about each other. She didn't have that. Not for a long time. And she feared that she'd never have it now. She stared at the road until she saw the Wimmer farm come into view. They parked the Impala someplace inconspicuous.

Sam remained silent. Just to break that silence, Jody said, "Looks quiet. So, we find Dean, find Vesta and skewer the bitch."

A smile tugged on Sam's lips. "Yeah."

It was dark and Sam pulled out some flashlights. He went to the trunk of his car and picked out a gun to use. He was certain that, even if it wasn't going to kill Vesta, it was going to stun her or at least slow her down.

* * *

Suzy and the other victims looked at Dean, who was leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets. He didn't really want to talk about what had happened about an hour ago: He had just sniffed out where they were and managed to contact his brother. Still, he seemed certain that they were going to leave. Honor and Suzy tried to be as hopeful.

"He's not coming," Neil said, despondent. His fiancée was nestled against him, numb now, silent and crying.

"He's coming," Dean insisted. An hour ago, he relayed the information he found through the smells of the area to his brother. However, it was on very spotty cell phone reception. Barely a single bar and that was when he held the phone against the edge of the trap door at the top of the ladder.

Suzy looked at her ring and the other victims. She knew what they had all done, breaking their vows of abstinence. They knew what she had done. It made her uncomfortable to be bared like this. Like her soul was naked. And the man she did it with? She glanced at Dean. She didn't know if he was even human.

"How can you be so sure?" Suzy asked. Her faith in God had been shaken. She didn't understand how Dean could have so much faith in a mortal human.

"Because he's my brother," he said that like it was a valid answer.

He sniffed deeply through his nose and then breathed out. He recognized the smell. "Sammy's here." His eyes brightened as he climbed the ladder quickly and started banging on the trap door. "Sammy! Sam! Sam!"

* * *

"You hear that?" Sam asked Jody as they entered the barn. She gripped the stake tighter and followed the ruckus behind Sam. As soon as he identified the lost voice as Dean's, Sam started running towards it, his heart beating quickly. "Dean?" But the voice was muffled and hard to pinpoint.

Jody followed after him, keeping her eyes out for Vesta. She wondered what a goddess would look like. She moved and then her footfalls made a different sound on a section of the floor. Old, moldy hay was on top of the trap door. "Sam. He's here."

She started pushing the hay and debris off of the trap door and Sam started to pull on the door, but found that it was locked with a heavy padlock. "Shit," he said as he hit the door with frustration. He took out two bobby pins from his wallet. The Winchesters were almost always prepared. Luckily, the lock didn't seem like it would be hard to pick.

* * *

The victims could hear Sam above them. "I'm coming, Dean!"

Suzy smiled as she realized that they had been found and would soon be freed. Honor laughed in relief. Neil lightened up and Barb seemed to have become a little more comfortable. Just enough that she wasn't panicking any longer. Wasn't frozen in fear. Hope allayed their fears. Dean smiled, feeling responsible for raising their spirits. "Told ya," he said.

"Why isn't it open already?" Neil asked.

"He's picking the lock right now."

Suzy wondered who these brothers were that they could pick locks, find the other on nothing more than a garbled phone call, and, at least one of them, acted like a dog. They weren't normal. "Who are you guys?"

"Winchesters."

Dean's smile faded when the familiar scent of a fire filled his nostrils: the scent of wood burning and perfume mingling with the smoke. "Sam! Bonnie's here. She's the one who put us down here."

* * *

Bonnie walked into the barn, moving quietly. Little did she know, Dean had already tipped off her arrival. However, she had seen the Impala and was looking for whoever was in here, meddling. Sam and Jody had hidden themselves, tossing hay on top of the trap door and hoping that Bonnie wouldn't find out that they had unlocked the trapdoor.

Sam had the gun ready in his hands and Jody was across the room, hiding. She had the sharpened stick in her hands. The plan was going to go like this: Sam would distract the goddess and Jody would pounce her and push the stake through her heart. Sweat beaded on Jody's forehead and she tried to keep her breathing even. Sam was managing a lot better. His expression was calm. _I can't believe these boys are used to this._ She thought to herself.

Of course, nothing goes according to plan.

Vesta stopped. "I know you are in here," she said in her sweet voice. "I haven't lived for thousands of years just for some mortals to get the drop on me." She put her hands on her hips.

She lifted her left hand and produced tongues of blue fire quickly-nearly white with how bright they were. When the light had died down, Vesta was gone, having used the fire as a diversion.

"Shit," Sam said. He kept in his hiding place and then felt as he was lifted off of his feet and thrown across the barn, landing hard in one of the stalls. Jody wanted to run across and save him, cry out his name, anything to make sure that he was okay, but she kept her mouth shut. Instead, she carefully started to sneak towards Vesta, keeping herself against the shadows.

Vesta daintily bent over and picked up the gun. She smiled. "This wouldn't kill me." She crushed the gun in her hands. She was so strong. She tossed the useless metal aside.

"But this will," Jody quipped as she rushed Vesta with the weapon.

However, the goddess easily dodged it and, in a reversal move, turned the stake around and pushed it into Jody's shoulder. Vesta lifted the sheriff off of the ground and held her up so that the sheriff couldn't touch the ground with her feet. "Oops, it seems like you missed," Vesta said condescendingly in her sweet voice.

* * *

Dean whined at the trap door and looked down at the victims. He couldn't risk them coming out and getting involved. They might get hurt.

"What's going on up there?" Honor asked.

Dean shut his eyes, his nose working and his ears listening. "They're fighting." He frowned. _And losing._

He could smell the acrid smell of blood hit his nose like a slap to the face. And could hear that the fight wasn't going well for Sam or Jody. He put his finger to his lips and then eased the trap door open. It seemed that Vesta was distracted by something-Jody. He winced when he saw the state that his friend was in.

He shut it and then looked to the victims, "Nobody comes out until I come and get you, got it?"

Neil, Barb, Honor, and Suzy quietly nodded.

The element of surprise was a trump card only if he could play it right. He slowly eased the trap door open, climbed out, and then eased it shut.

* * *

"Really?" Jody taunted despite the immense pain she was feeling. She was watching as Sam moved in the stall. He's safe… She needed to keep the goddess's attention on her. "This is how a goddess acts?"

Vesta smiled and then placed Jody onto the slaughter table forcefully. Meanwhile, Sam was moving carefully towards the goddess, trying to remain covert.

"I'm sort of new to this, but, you know, a Roman deity burying people alive in a barn? Sort of pathetic, don't you think?"

She seemed to have touched a nerve because Vesta's grin faded momentarily. "It only got pathetic when I started having to do it myself." She punched Jody in the face, cutting her lip. The sheriff spat blood at her and kicked at her, which served as a good distraction.

Sam rushed her and knocked her aside momentarily. Vesta got back onto her feet, a dark expression on her face, then held him against a wooden beam in the barn. But, when she touched him, her expression became one of confusion and then shock as she realized that there was something so incredibly wrong with him. He was so broken. "Dear boy, you're all duct tape and safety pins inside. How are you alive?"

Sam furrowed his brow. This wasn't the first hunt in which the monster made a comment like that about him. Then there was the lost time. So much wasn't making sense any more.

Jody put her hand on the stake in her shoulder, but couldn't find the strength to move it. Her hand was shaking too much. Probably from the pain. Suddenly, she saw another hand move over hers. _Dean?_

She whimpered as he pulled the stake from her shoulder. She had tried to stifle her cry.

Vesta brought her flame-covered hand closer to Sam, letting the warm fire lick at his stomach, burning his shirt away and his skin. Sam's eyes flashed blue and the goddess watched as his skin healed quickly.

"What are you?"

"He's my brother, bitch." Dean used that moment of distraction to push the stake through Vesta's heart and watched as she burned away in blue flames and finally died.

Jody sighed as she tenderly got up, needing to use her good arm to prop herself up. It's over and all she could think was that couldn't wait for a hot shower, a cup of coffee, and a long nap.

"Alright, Sam, let's get these people home."

Sam turned to face him and Dean could see it was Ezekiel for a moment before the angel relinquished control again.

* * *

Castiel woke up to Lively in his motel room. She was really close to him and he startled and fell out of the bed, dragging his blankets with him.

"You were dreaming," she said as he got his bearings. "It was a good dream, wasn't it?"

Castiel sat up and asked, "How do you know?"

Lively watched his quickly fading smile as he bunched the covers over his crotch. "Oh, I don't know, let's say I'm perceptive," she said. "So, what did you dream about?" She was genuinely curious because Castiel, while he did steal glances at her body from time to time, didn't lust after her in the way other men did.

"A… friend of mine," Castiel answered.

She raised her eyebrows. "Oh? Sounds scandalous."

"Not really. It's just… It's complicated..." It was as if it finally dawned on him that Lively was in here. "When did you get in here?"

"I did say I was going to help you. So, I researched some more things last night. Interesting things that I think you were looking for."

Castiel stood up and started getting dressed, his back facing Lively. He put on the jeans and Lively noticed he was going commando. He was an odd duck. He turned around once he got his shirt buttoned up. "So, what did you find?"

"Well, you didn't give me much, but here," Lively hopped up and ran to the laptop. She turned it around to show Castiel. She had several tabs up and scrolled through them before she found the right one. "This. Apparently, there was a group of teenagers-locals to the area-who got lost in the woods after spending their entire lives there. It was after a bonfire they held in the woods. They were missing for a week. They weren't hurt. Now, this happened last month, actually."

He looked slightly impressed with how much effort she had put into it.

She continued, "Then there was this, it's about a man who had wandered the forest alone for two years. _That's two years,_ Cas. And then he was found last year."

"Last year?" Castiel asked.

"Uh, yeah."

"His name?"

"It's Alan Winograd."

"Where is he?"

"He's living with his sister about an hour away in Scarborough."

* * *

Jody had her arm in a sling as she packed up her things. She was still feeling sore, but managed to do it with only minimal help from the Winchesters. She needed to get home to Sioux Falls.

"Heading out?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. I'd tell you boys to stay out of trouble, but what's the point?" she laughed.

Sam hugged her, accidentally squeezing her bad shoulder. "Ow." She winced and the tall Winchester smiled apologetically.

Dean followed suit, being a little more gentle than Sam, learning from his brother's mistake. "Thanks, Jody. We couldn't have done it without you."

"Oh what can I say? I'm getting the hang of this." If someone told her years ago that she would fight goddesses, she would have laughed in their faces. She watched as Dean retreated to the bed, he paced in circles near the bed.

Sam attempted to refocus her attention before she could think anything was strange about Dean's behavior. "Jody." He helped her out and gave another farewell, "Drive safe." Once she was gone, Sam turned to his brother. "Dean, we have to talk."

Dean circled a few more times before he finally let himself sit on the bed. Sam knew that it was an effect from the potion he took weeks ago. Lingering in his body. He tried to think of the research he had already done on it, and still had the hope that they could cure him, but the more he read, the more evidence there was that this really wasn't something that actually wore off. Finally satisfied, Dean asked, "What's up?"

Sam felt worry tug at him, as he tried to figure out how to word his question. "What if there is something wrong with me-something...really wrong?" He had seen how interested Dean had been in his well-being lately, and then there was what Vesta had said to him. And the fact that he didn't remember much of what happened afterward. He couldn't remember Jody getting off the table or when Dean came or how Vesta had died, exactly. He was able to put bits and pieces together, but it was something he was needing to do more and more often.

"You're just crapped out, man. You need some rest," Dean said. He offered a gentle smile and scratched absently above his ear.

"It's more than that Dean," Sam said, letting the words come out. "She practically said I was dead inside."

Dean sighed. "I don't know, man. It's probably the trials, okay? Probably some sort of a, you know, aftereffect. It's not like you're bouncing back from the flu here. I mean, you were glowing with freaking trial juice."

"I… I don't know." Sam said, feeling like Dean was feeding him reassurances.

"Well, what else could it be?"

"Why does it have to be something else? It's always something else. We're always scraping to find some other explanation when maybe it is... just me."

Dean realized the misstep he had taken in keeping secrets from Sam. "Oh come on, Sam."

"I'm a mess, Dean. You know it. And sometimes, I feel like maybe I'm never gonna actually be all right."

Dean made an inhuman whine and the sound made Sam wince. Maybe none of them would ever be all right ever again.

"Is this just… just the way I am? The way we are?" Sam said.

Dean closed his eyes and shook his head. He wanted to speak, but when he opened his mouth, no words came out.

Sam noticed him struggling. "Dean?"

He cleared his throat, finding them again as his brain latched onto his humanity. "Look, you're going to be all right. Just give it time. It's not you. It's me. I…"

Sam's eyes glowed blue as Ezekiel took control. "I wouldn't do that Dean."

"He deserves to know."

"Your brother will not make it. If he ejects me, he will die."

Dean crossed his arms. "How much longer, Zeke? How much longer do we have to keep playing this?"

"Not much longer. I can promise you that."

"Wait. Zeke?"

Ezekiel turned to face Dean and studied him. Humans were so strange. Did he not see how much more strategic it was for Sam to not know? It was safer this way. He could heal Sam and, for once, do something _right_. Falling to Earth was his second chance.

"What if I can convince him?"

Ezekiel shook his head sadly. "I don't see that happening."

And then eyes flashed blue again and Sam looked at Dean confused. Honestly, he didn't need to see that blue glow to catch when it was Sam or when it was Ezekiel. He knew Sam and when that icy, callous expression came across his face, it was so un-Samlike.

"Dean? You were saying it wasn't me?"

He smiled sadly. "N-nothing. I meant that… if something _is_ wrong. It's… it's not your fault. We'll deal with it, Sammy. Have faith." The words he said tasted almost bitter. Faith. What a shitty thing to rely on in a world without heaven, a missing God, and angels at war with each other.


	4. Regenerative Properties

_Scarborough, Virginia_

Lively's car was a gray 1996 Volvo 440, full of dents and scratches. Castiel was in the passenger's seat and shifted uncomfortably in the small vehicle. A grinding squeal accompanied every stop that the car made. He played with the seatbelt across his shoulder and chest.

Castiel was nervous. He knew that he wasn't the best at interacting with people. That when he and the Winchesters did any sort of hunts together, it was always one of them who carried the conversation while they attempted to get some information.

Lively spoke to her passenger, "Hey, Cas."

"What is it?"

"What are we doing exactly?" Lively asked. "I mean I have an inkling that you are on a case or a mission or whatever, but you don't seem to be exactly very, ahem, _good_ at it."

Castiel looked at her, bewildered.

"Observant, remember?"

He didn't relax, but stiffly admitted, "Yes. I'm on a case."

"Care to tell me about it?"

"Uh," Castiel looked at the car door and wished that he could just teleport out of there, disappear when he didn't know what to do. Right now, he wasn't sure how much he was supposed to be sharing. He had been stupid enough to trust Metatron.

Lively urged, "You can trust me, you know."

Castiel went for the leap of faith, even though he felt it would end badly. Perhaps he deserved for it to go badly. Haltingly, because he wasn't sure about sharing this information, he said, "When I was in the woods, I saw a blue fire and it was floating around. And it was affecting my phone, and talking to me. I thought… I thought that maybe it was a ghost and I didn't want it hurting or killing any more people."

"You said it was talking to you? What did it say?"

"Your response is not typical," the former-angel noted gruffly.

" _I'm_ not typical. Obviously. Two friggin' seconds with me would tell you that." She let out an impatient huff. "So, Cas, what did it say?"

All or nothing, Castiel thought. He continued to explain. "It kept asking if I was lost."

"So, you think it's a ghost?"

"Well, I want to find out. I have to." He furrowed his brow as he said that, focusing on the task at hand. He wondered if he truly felt he was duty-bound to do this or if he was using it as a distraction.

"You ever hear of karma, Cas?"

"I have," Castiel answered and then defined, "It's the belief that all of your actions will have repercussions that affect your life." He was familiar with the beliefs of many people, having heard prayers and having lived among them.

"Is that why you're so nice? You hoping for your luck to turn?"

He looked confused at her words. "Shouldn't you be nice to be nice?"

She grinned. "Now, that's adorable."

* * *

Lively parked the Volvo outside of the Winograd home. She played absently with her necklaces as the two of them studied the house. It was actually quite nice. It was a one-story, ranch-style home set in the suburbs of Scarborough. There was a small garden planted with bushes of yellow and red flowers. The home had huge windows, though the blinds were drawn shut. The roof was well-peaked, adding a storybook charm to the quaint house.

The pair of them started up the flagstone path to the front door. Castiel was about to knock, but stopped himself. His fist hovered an inch in front of the door. He lowered it.

"What's wrong?" Lively asked.

"When I was with Dean, he used an FBI badge. He's even made one for my personal use." Castiel pulled it out of his back pocket simply because he didn't have the inside pocket of his trench coat any longer. "He wore a suit. I wore a trench coat. And a tie."

"Uh, Cas," she held his wrist and forced him to put his badge away. "How about we put that away?" She laughed nervously. No comment on how illegal it was to impersonate a federal agent. Probably, by now, she just was rolling with the punches and had fully understood that Cas was just _weird._

"Don't worry, you know how to deal with people. Even without fake badges."

Somehow Castiel didn't believe that. He wasn't really the best at being human. He was homeless for awhile. He killed. He had sex. He died. He was brought back to life. And he worked at a Gas-and-Sip. Somehow, that didn't seem like a list of _successful human._

"Just be honest. You want to know more. You're doing it for a good reason."

Lively knocked on the door. She waited for several minutes before knocking again. Nobody came out to let them in or greet them.

"So, now what?"

"We wait."

A few more minutes and she snickered.

"What is it?"

"I can't imagine you wearing a trench coat and a tie."

* * *

 _Lebanon, Kansas_

Kevin hunched over the angel tablet, trying to see for himself if what Crowley had said-about the spell that kicked the angels out of heaven was true-and he couldn't find anything that said otherwise. Besides, reading the language gave him a headache and he wanted to rest his head. Sometimes, his research would lead him to look for something in the file room and he'd have to steel himself against Crowley's taunts. When he couldn't take it anymore, he had been trying to figure that out to trying to find the cure for the after-effects of the potion Dean took. He couldn't see a cure to that either and his hope that time would get rid of the effects seemed to have been nothing.

Hopeless. That was what all of this was.

He lifted himself from the books sprawled around him on the large desk when he heard the Winchesters returning from their hunt. An excuse to take a break. Kevin stretched, feeling every vertebrae in his spine as he did so. He couldn't recall the last time he ate. Or drank. Or bathed. He separated himself from the research to greet them.

"Sam. Dean. Hey."

He was afraid of the question they would ask. It was inevitable.

"Any progress on the angel tablet?" Dean asked.

Yep, there it was. Kevin shrugged. "No."

"How about the cure for Dean?" This time, it was Sam's inquiry.

Again. The shrug. "No." Didn't they know how useless it made him feel? He sighed. He looked to Dean. "So, how are you feeling?"

He smiled. "Actually, ever since we finished the hunt and were on the road, I haven't been feeling it too badly. I feel pretty normal right now." He was being honest.

It recalled the moment last month when Dean licked his face. He, of course, was horrified and that was when he agreed that Kevin should go on _find the cure_ duty rather than strictly focus on the angel tablet. Kevin pulled a piece of paper from the table and then tossed it.

Dean watched it and didn't go after it. He seemed relaxed and normal. After a few more seconds, he looked up to Kevin, "Uh, you gonna get that?"

The prophet went over and picked it up.

"So, are you cured?" Sam asked.

"I guess," Dean said with a shrug.

"I wouldn't count on it," Kevin said as he readied the paper ball, aiming for the trash can. "You've done this before, where it didn't seem to affect you as much. After you hunted that _you-are-what-you-eat_ chef, for example. And after this hunt?" He tossed the ball with a rather halfway decent shooting form, and it went in. "Yes, got it. Anyways, we'll have to wait and see what happens."

* * *

Castiel and Lively stood at the front door for nearly thirty minutes before it finally opened. A woman wielding a shotgun came out. Her face was weathered and there was a scowl imbedded on her face. Her blue-gray eyes looked permanently sad and almost colorless. Her hair was pulled back. Dark blonde hair that was dull and grayed with age and stress. This was Millie Winograd. "Who the hell are you? I swear I'll shoot you all to Hell." She pointed the gun to Lively.

"We just want to ask some questions," Lively said. Her eyes told Castiel to speak. He didn't until she cleared her throat and prodded him with her elbow. "Say something."

"When I was in the woods, something happened. I wanted to talk with Alan."

Miss Winograd lowered her gun. Her gaze was hard.

"I saw blue fire in the forest. I just want to… to know more."

Her mouth became a thin line at the words _blue fire_. He could tell that she cared a lot about her brother. She was guarding him. She stepped away from the door and called into the house loudly. Her voice was husky from years of chain smoking. "Al! We got some visitors here for you."

"No more reporters," was the tired reply.

"They ain't reporters!"

Silence.

"Come in," Millie said, leading them into the home, which was nicely kept in the living and kitchen areas. "He's down there." She pointed down the hallway. And, once more, she warned, "Try anything and I'll shoot you."

The closer they got to Al's room, the more they saw clutter slowly building. Books and notes and strange tools and talismans stuffed in boxes pushed against the walls to leave a wide corridor. The door to his room was completely made of iron. Lively paused.

"Lively?" Castiel looked at her, with a questioning look in his eyes.

"You go on ahead. It's your case. I'm just a bit uncomfortable here. This is creeping me out."

He only nodded in understanding and then he pushed on the door. It creaked open and Castiel looked down to see a man in a wheelchair. It was Al and he faced away from the former angel, his eyes focused on his research. He glanced up at a mirror which had symbols etched around the frame. He saw Castiel and relaxed. Just a man. "Millie said you ain't a reporter. Where's the other one?"

"She just drove me up here." Castiel answered. "I'm the one with the questions. Uh, I'm Cas."

Al turned his chair around and looked at him. Uncomfortably, Castiel tucked his hands in his pockets and averted his eyes. The man's scrutiny was hard, intense. He had a thick beard and tugged on it thoughtfully. "So Cas, you have questions?"

"I was in the forest and followed some blue fire." Direct as always.

"Don't follow it, boy," Al warned. "I did and I was lost in the forest for two years without human contact. And wouldn't you know, the day I break my spine was the day I was found by the townspeople."

"You were found half a mile away from Ardent," Castiel said, remembering the article he had read.

"I grew up here, played in these woods all my life as a child and never once got lost. Yet, people think that I wandered two years in the woods when if I just went a straight line any direction for a few hours, I would have gotten out. The reporters made me out to look stupid. Whatever is in that wood, it changes the path."

Castiel looked at the room. Saw the weapons in it. Saw wards here. He knew what Al was and if he knew what Al was, that meant that he knew what was the monster in the woods. "Are you a hunter?"

Instead of pointing out the guns, the former-angel pointed out the wards.

Al seemed taken aback. "Yes. But I can hardly believe you're one. You don't seem experienced enough."

Castiel wasn't sure if he could call himself a hunter now. Because was he really? But, he couldn't tell the man he was an angel because he no longer was one. He was an experienced soldier but it seemed that hunters had other skills than hand to hand combat and sword skills. Instead of addressing it, he asked, "What… what is the monster in the woods?"

"A type of fae," Al said. "That one is the Will-o'-the-Wisp. I thought I put up the wards there. To keep the it out."

"Wards?" Castiel asked. "Can you show me?"

Al took a piece of paper from his desk and drew out an image quickly. It was a simple, a circle and a triangle with a triquetra in the center. "My family carved them into the trees years ago. Wards the unholy spirits out, and that includes the fae. We also had iron nails driven. Here, here, and here." Al pointed at the points just outside of the triangle.

The man continued, "So, three years ago, someone cut down some of the trees, leaving an opening for one of the them, so I was down there to carve some more out and then that's when the 'Wisp got me. There's something irresistible about that fire. And it plays tricks on your mind and I let my guard down for a mere moment. And that, Cas, is why it's dangerous."

Castiel wondered why he was able to follow the fire and come back out within a day. "I didn't see any of this or the iron nails in the trees when I went in."

"Shit," Al said.

"So, put the wards back up and the Will-o'-the-Wisp is gone?"

"Yeah." Al frowned. "And I'm not exactly capable of doing it anymore." He wheeled his chair back and forth to make a point. "And Millie can't either."

"Why not?" Castiel looked confused.

"How I got out? She made a deal with the 'Wisp." Al said, absently. "She won't tell me what she did, so I suppose it was shameful, but the day she got me out was the day the 'Wisp paralyzed me. See, it didn't promise to give me back whole and able-bodied. In addition, we have something of a truce with the Fae. We don't hurt them; they don't hurt us." His eyes lit up. "But you ain't part of no deal. You can be our loophole and drive it out."

Before, when Cas thought the Will-o'-the-Wisp was a ghost, he simply wanted to help it find a place of rest. Now, he simply wanted to know what business it had here. If it was actually hostile.

"Cas," Al said, pulling something out of a drawer. It looked like a large stone bead and fit in the palm of his hand. "This is a self-bored stone. You can look through it to see through the guises of the fae."

He took it reluctantly. "Don't you need it?"

He waved his hand dismissively. "It's your hunt now."

"Other weaknesses?"

"Cold-wrought iron is about the only thing I've found that can kill them. Not just regular, old, run-of-the-mill iron. It has to be cold-wrought iron. They can be trapped by dropping salt or sugar. They're forced to count the grains."

* * *

Lively smiled and sat on the living room couch. Millie prepared some tea. She brought it out. They sat in awkward, tangible, dangerous silence for several minutes before Lively finally spoke. "I noticed your garden in the front. Lovely flowers." Her words were stiff.

"St. John's Wort and Red Verbena," the woman said sharply while watching her guest. She stared at Lively's feet.

"I thought so." Lively was nervously tugging at one of her necklaces. She held it in her hand, stroking the embossed symbol upon it over and over again with her thumb. She prayerfully begged for Cas to finish up. She didn't expect him to be into this. She was just a wanderer, a drifter, and it seemed that her curiosity had led her into a part of something that she really hadn't wanted to be a part of.

"Repels the Fae," Millie said, almost spitting the words out. She sipped at her tea. The room was so quiet that the sound of the older woman gulping the liquid seemed even more conspicuous. "You gonna drink some tea?"

Lively shook her head. She could smell the herbs in it and didn't trust that Millie wasn't going to put something in it.

Millie frowned. "Shame."

Castiel came out of the room, moving smoothly and confidently. Now, he had a plan.

"And, he's done," Lively said clapping her hands together and standing up. "Time to go."

* * *

The King of Hell was a prisoner. He sat in the dark of the file room, hidden from view. In the silent loneliness, he would be aware of his emotions. What Sam had done to him, injecting him with blood, almost curing him of his status as a demon, it brought him to the very edge of humanity. Alone, without anybody watching, he felt safe enough to try to get in touch with his emotions. It was like fire in his blood. Painful, burning, but also purifying and raw and powerful. And necessary. He shut his eyes. He needed to take back his throne. Abaddon was going to ruin Hell with her chaotic rule.

The lights turned on. Someone was rifling through the files. "Kevin?" No answer.

If it was Kevin, Crowley would have heard at least a harsh sigh. Some anger that the prophet could not hide because of the fact that his mother had been taken away from him. Crowley almost felt sorry for doing that. Taking Kevin's blood made him feel more sentimental lately.

Another guess. "Moose?"

"Shut it, Crowley." It was Dean's voice. _Ah, Squirrel._

Crowley listened to him, a smile on his face. The King of Hell had always been rather good at reading people. Keep him in the same room with someone and he'd figure them out. He had been in the Bunker as a prisoner for weeks and waiting for his opportunity to escape. From his voice, Crowley could tell Dean was getting a bit desperate to find whatever he was looking for. He called out from his chair, barely able to move thanks to the cuffs and the collar and the devil's trap underneath him. "Whatever are you looking for?"

"I'm not falling for your crap."

Crowley sighed. "Have you ever thought to consider I may honestly want to offer my assistance?"

Dean snorted a laugh. "That's rich. Coming from the King of Hell."

Instead of continuing their banter, Dean just left. Crowley was alone again. The lights turned off. "Bullocks."

He stared into the darkness and sighed. He forgot how boring and difficult it was to be a prisoner.

* * *

 _Ardent, Virginia_

Castiel looked to Lively who seemed tense ever since going into the Winograd home. She hadn't even wanted to meet Al in his room. "So, what did Alan Winograd tell you?" she asked him.

"He said that if I put some sigils on the trees with iron nails, then the Will-o'-the-Wisp will go away."

"And will you do that?" Lively asked.

"I want to see if it actually wants to kill people, first."

"Really, why?"

Castiel shrugged. "Because I wouldn't want to banish something that was trying to make things right." He remembered the days when he'd smite demons just for being demons. Now he'd smite them for thinking that they'd hurt Dean and Sam-if he could smite them. In fact, he even worked with the demon Crowley when he decided to become God. And that didn't really work. Now, there was a war brewing in heaven and he was thinking of finding a way to quietly resolve things and he had been caught up in a case involving a monster that he and the Winchesters had never faced before. With a painful honesty, he added, "Don't we all deserve an opportunity for redemption?"

"When you put it that way," Lively said. "It sounds like you are running from something in the past. Was it someone you hurt?"

Castiel tilted his head. There was a faraway look in his eyes. "Someone. Everyone."

She frowned. "So it's just redemption you're looking for?"

"I can't discount that as a possible motivation, but I think I just want to be a good man." _Because I haven't been a good angel._

"That's the best we can do, hon."

* * *

The pair came back to the motel. Castiel started collecting up his supplies. Lively had gone into her own motel room and he hoped that she stayed there, out of danger. He didn't have any cold-wrought iron, but had his angel blade. Hopefully, it would work. It worked against everything else, in any case.

He packed some salt into his pocket, remembering what Al said about the fae and salt and the compulsion to count the grains. Though he knew that his flashlight would be rather useless once he got closer to the Will-o'-the-Wisp, he picked it up anyways. And he also packed his cellphone. So far, the fae had been most comfortable talking through the device, but perhaps he'd get to meet him. He pulled the self-bored stone that Al had given him and pocketed it. It was then he realized, save for the stone, he was packed the same as the first time he left to go to the woods to meet the 'Wisp. Maybe he did have good hunter's instincts after all.

He headed out and found Lively leaning against the painted brick of the motel. She was dressed in her usual attire. Dark camisole, long and green patterned skirt, and her mousy brown hair was done up in a long braid down her back. Her many necklaces clinked together as she pushed herself forward to stand away from the wall. "So, I'm coming, right?" She stood in front of him.

"It's not safe," Castiel said, attempting to sidestep her. However, Lively maneuvered herself so that she could still block his path. He tried another direction and she again intercepted.

"Well, I could assume that, but I want to see this Will-'o-the-Wisp," she said.

"No," he didn't move this time, choosing to wait for her to allow him to head out.

Lively remained fiercely in front of him and she studied his appearance. He seemed to always wear that forlorn expression, his intense eyes held sadness in them, and dark hair unkempt. The expression was equal parts war-torn soldier and child-like naivety. She had no idea how he could be both. She attempted to mirror it a little. She wished that she, even after the life she had lived, could look at the world with wide-eyed wonder. Finally, she stepped aside, though she didn't believe he could handle a Will-o'-the-Wisp without her.

Castiel started down the road, towards the forest. Moving at a brisk, even pace.

"Cas."

"Don't follow me," he stated without looking back. "I have to do this alone."

She tilted her head and watched him break into a jog. She stood there, her gaze lingering on his figure at the end of the road growing smaller and smaller when she realized something: He hadn't been limping all day.

* * *

Sam moved quickly down the hall, passing Kevin once. What Vesta had told him in their last case stuck in his brain. He was broken. He was, as she stated, all duct tape and safety pins. There were other instances, where monsters asked him what he was. It made him uncomfortable. And then there was the lost time. He headed to the dungeon, where they kept Crowley. He wanted to ask him something. _Is there something wrong with me?_

Ezekiel took over and made him walk back to his bedroom, where he passed Kevin. The young man was wandering the halls, brushing his teeth. Life with his nose in ancient texts had long created an aversion to sitting still.

"Sam?"

Ezekiel let Sam have the reigns again. He didn't yet trust himself to be Sam without raising suspicions to Kevin. The younger Winchester looked confused as he glanced around in the hall before he looked down at the prophet. "Kevin? Didn't I just pass you?"

He took the toothbrush out of his mouth. "Uh yeah. What are you doing?"

"I was…" Sam's eyebrows drew together as he concentrated. He remembered what he was doing and then knew that he didn't want Kevin to worry about him. The poor kid had enough to worry about. "I needed a walk."

Kevin continued down the hall, heading to the bathroom. His eyes watched Sam, trying to figure out what, exactly, was wrong with him.

 _I'm trying to help,_ Ezekiel reasoned. _I just want to do things right this time._ He was just wanted redemption.


	5. Accommodation Reflex

**A/N: Lots of excitement last chapter! This one is fun, too. It's a pretty Cas-centric chapter. The name Caoimhe is pronounced "Kwee-vuh."**

 _Ardent, Virginia_

Castiel was in the forest now. It wasn't dark enough to use his flashlight just yet and he had his angel blade tucked up the sleeve of his hoodie. He moved between the trees, waiting for the Will-o'-the-Wisp to show itself. Every one of his movements could be heard in the subtle crunch of the detritus of the forest.

He wandered in the woods for hours and grew thirsty. He realized he didn't have any water on him. It was sometimes hard to remember to bring essentials like that in new situations. He had had thousands of years not needing such trivial provisions and now that he was in a human body, he suffered for his forgetfulness.

He paused to rest, squatting down. Then, he felt something hit him in the back and it caused him to lurch forward. He turned his head, looked around and saw the water bottle laying on the ground. He pulled out the stone and put his eye to the self-bored hole, glancing around to see if there was anything odd waiting in the woods. Any changes or trickery. He saw none, but could now feel a presence hiding in the woods with him.

He picked up the water bottle. He wanted to resist it until he was sure it wasn't poisoned, but the thirst he was feeling made it hard to. Instead, he uncapped it and guzzled it down greedily. Now that he was human, he could appreciate just how deprivation made water taste better. Food, too. He remembered going dumpster diving when he was still not very good at being human. And then, he ended up having sex with a reaper.

Fun times. And the memory coaxed a smile on his face. Even if it did end in him being tortured to death.

He looked around, trying to pinpoint where the drink had come from. "I appreciate the water," he said. "Whoever you are."

He knew it wasn't an angel watching over him. He hadn't prayed and none of them watched the toils of humans as closely as he had watched over Dean when they still had heaven and he still had his wings. He briefly thought of the threat of war. He knew it was coming and that the angels had more pressing things to worry about than whether or not a man was thirsty.

* * *

 _Lebanon, Kansas_

Dean was in the library again. He glanced up at Kevin who sat across from him. "Got news on the Angel Tablet?"

"No," Kevin said.

Dean sighed as he worked through a book, trying to research more about angelic possession. To see if Ezekiel had lied about anything so far. He turned a page idly, eyes searching for an answer.

He had been looking for answers in the file room, but it was close to the dungeon they had been keeping Crowley in. He hated listening to that demon heckle him. The best way to prevent Crowley from tricking him was to not listen to him. That son of a bitch was clever and manipulative.

After yet another paragraph describing demonic possession-not angelic possession-Dean shut the book and leaned back.

Kevin's eyes scanned the book. It was in Latin. "Possession?" Just from his tone of voice, Dean hear the unspoken question: _What does possession have to do with fixing heaven?_

"Just reading up on Angelic Possession." Dean frowned. "Except that it's pretty limited. These damn Men of Letters cared more about Demonic shit."

"Well, what about Castiel?" Kevin asked. "Is there a way to get into contact with him?"

Dean shut his eyes and groaned. Of course he knew that. But at this point in time, the last person that he wanted to call upon for help was Castiel. It wasn't just because Dean felt guilty for kicking him out. Dean told himself that he didn't want to call the angel because he wanted him safe, happy, and, if he was going to do the human thing, he wasn't going to do it as a hunter.

 _Keep him out of it. Keep him safe._

* * *

Hunting and being in the thick of danger was exactly what Castiel was doing.

He still wore his hoodie despite the heat. Sweat ran down his face from exertion. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, feeling his growing beard against it. Shaving was also something he had to remember to do. His vessel was no longer static. His body changed constantly now. He still had his sharp sense of time, though. He had given the 'Wisp ample time to come out; it had been hours and there was still daylight left. Summer let the days linger well into the evening.

At 7:30, it was time for Plan B. He pulled out his angel blade from his sleeve and brought himself close to a tree. Carefully, he started carving out a crude symbol-the one which Al had taught him.

He didn't even get to finish it when the phone rang briskly. Castiel looked at the screen, but all he saw was that the phone was malfunctioning. He put the phone to his ear and heard a whisper hissing out.

"What are you doing?"

"Putting up wards." Castiel pinned the phone to his shoulder with his ear as he continued carving the shape into the trees.

"Stop it." The voice was not on the phone. Now, the phone was off and the voice came from somewhere in the woods.

And then the blue flame hovered closer and closer, darting between and trees, taking a meandering route through the forest as it neared the former angel. Castiel took out the salt and poured it in a pile on the leaf litter so that it made a small mound. The fire hovered close to it, almost to the ground, and Castiel took the self-bored stone from his pocket and put his eye through the hole in the stone. At first he didn't see anything until he closed his other eye. And then, he saw the creature as it truly was.

He saw a fair-haired boy wearing a soft, expression, quietly mumbling as he counted the grains of salt compulsively. He wore a tunic and tight pants. The blue fire of the Will-o'-the-Wisp flame was actually his lantern, attached to a long stick by a short chain, so that it swayed as he moved, but now, it was nothing more than a small glass cage around a tender flame.

"I… just wanted to talk." Castiel lowered the stone and then saw nothing except the familiar fireball. He put the stone back up to his eye. He still needed it. He was hoping that seeing the truth would mean he wouldn't need to hold the stone up.

The boy canted his head towards Castiel, though his eyes remained trapped on the grains of salt, still counting. "You said your name was Castiel?" He asked. "It's not a common name. I suppose your parents were religious. You know, it's the same one as the angel of Thursday." There was a sing-song rhythm to the way the boy spoke. And something ageless and ancient to it as well. "Today is Thursday. I suppose, Castiel, that today is not your day."

Those words were oddly reminiscent.

"I thought I could trust you, as you were honest to me. Giving me your name. And telling me about how you want to fix the problem you made."

"You can trust me..." Cas said.

"Oh, and why ought I to trust you, Castiel?"

"I have not done anything to you yet."

"Now, are you talk like one of the Fair Folk-my folk?" He said with a grin. "Loopholes and truths unsaid more than honesty. For trust, I require proof. For proof: Removal of that lil' thing you've gone and carved, yes?"

Castiel touched his angel blade against the beginning of what he had carved into the tree. He sliced through the ward he had started. "Fine. It's done. Now, I just want to know if you were planning to hurt people."

The Will-o'-the-Wisp smiled. "I am nary but a feckless Fae. My law is simple. Offer me honesty and honor and yea, I shall not do any undue harm to you. But for a single transgression, I shall do that which I must. But I shall not forever touch a splendid soul to snuff it out. There is more fun to gain by watching them wither as they wander."

Castiel tilted his head.

"I brought you back out of the woods, remember?"

"Why?"

"Because I wanted to see what happened next and you had yet to bring my ire upon you. See the story unfold, if you will."

Castiel looked confused and he lowered the blade he had drawn towards the fae, keeping his left hand on the stone held to his eye. "So you won't hurt anybody?"

"No," the 'Wisp said, as he continued counting the grains of salt.

And then Castiel heard someone behind him cock a gun.

"I won't, but mayhaps, she will, laddie."

He turned around and saw Millie, her gun drawn to him. This time, it was just a revolver instead of the shotgun.

"Sorry," the woman said. And Castiel remembered Al's words. About his sister seemingly ashamed for something she had done. She had given herself to this creature, to do his bidding.

And Castiel could not stand for that. He had fought hard to understand the importance of free will. He had a rich and complicated relationship with a man named Dean Winchester. A profound bond that had taught him enough about humanity to make him understand how and why the Winchesters could wake up every day to hunt things. But now, he was in a bind. He didn't want to die yet.

"Millie, do not kill the poor boy just yet. It feels good to dance when you've won, yes?"

The woman kept her finger on the trigger. Nothing moved or changed, except the tension was lessened a little bit. "Drop your knife."

Castiel released his grip, letting his angel blade fall to the ground.

The Will-o'-the-Wisp went over to the knife and tentatively reached for it, as if afraid the mere touch of it might burn him. When he found that it didn't, he picked it up and laughed in glee. "You think that this would kill me? 'Tis nothing but a plaything."

He sliced at Castiel, cutting him through his hoodie and shirt to leave a shallow laceration on his side. Immediately, the former angel put a hand on his wound, to try to staunch the bleeding somewhat. Again, he was sorely missing his angelic powers because the slash hurt.

The 'Wisp expertly flipped and caught Castiel's weapon in a one-handed juggle. "So, the brother Winograd told you of the ward, and the salt, and the self-bored stone, but not that cold-wrought iron is deadly to the Fae? This silly old thing doesn't even make me itchy. No iron in it at all?" He tossed it casually over his shoulder, letting it hit the ground.

"Millie? You may do me the honors, my sweet." Millie Winograd looked to Castiel, her expression was of apology and duty. She raised her revolver at Castiel.

"You do not have to do this," the former-angel said.

She looked sadly at him, "But I do." Her will had been wrested from her. She tried so hard to resist. Cas could see it. He could remember when he had to resist such an enormous force in his own mind when he had been sent to kill Dean, his thoughts hacked and manipulated by Naomi.

"I forgive you," Cas said. He stared down the revolver, watching Millie's lined face, her grayed hair frizzed from the humidity. But mostly he saw the pain in her eyes. He was familiar with it: Regret. If only he could take away all the bad decisions he had made.

"No, you don't get to say that to me," she said quietly. "I don't deserve it."

And then, the sound of singing interrupted the tense moment. It was a beautiful, otherworldly sound in an old language. Roughly translated: _Come here, weary traveler. Oh, won't you come? To the river's edge and sing the river's song._

Like a siren's call, it beckoned him. His hand dropped so that his stone was at his side, still grasped in a tight fist. He must not lose it. He felt his feet take one step and then another. Millie turned around and he saw her back as she walked in the direction that the voice was coming from-which also had her moving towards the 'Wisp.

"You _will_ stop moving," the Will-o'-the-Wisp said firmly to the older woman. Millie's feet wanted to move, but she was forced to hold still. Her face looked pained. The song stopped.

And Castiel found that he stopped, too.

"Caoimhe," the Will-o'-the-Wisp knew the name of the other creature. She flinched at the sound of her name. His eyes were still stuck on the pile, trying to finish counting. Only a couple hundred left to go. So close. He stuck his finger on the pile to shift the grains. "Didn't you leave Avalon to go play at being human?"

Cas looked again through the self-bored stone, to see this Caoimhe, his other eye shut. A creature had come out of the wood from behind the Will-o'-the-Wisp. She wore a green, hooded cloak, with the hood well over her face, obscuring it. It was trimmed in gold. She smiled as she stepped forward. Rather than feet, cloven hooves touched delicately on the leaf litter that her foot falls were silent.

The hooded figure said nothing. She had the angel blade in her hands, her hooves sank through the leaf litter. She brandished the weapon, moving closer and closer to Castiel, whose heart was beating quickly. _I don't want to die,_ was the only thought that whirred through his head at that moment. He had too much he wanted to do.

But then, Caoimhe lowered her body outstretching her arms, with the angel blade balanced between her two palm-up hands. Castiel saw that her fair skin was tinged gray. She let her head drop to show that she meant him no harm. Tentatively, he went forward and took the blade in his hand.

As soon as he picked it up, Caoimhe stood proudly and lowered her hood, revealing hair like spun gold. Dark blonde, but rich and warm in hue. She had a strange elegance to her. Her beauty was something feral and intense. It was in her dark eyes, something wise and sharp. Even in the way she held her mouth at rest was a touch of the predatory. She smiled and revealed sharp canines. However, in her expression, she seemed familiar to Castiel.

However, he couldn't dwell on that because the 'Wisp had finished counting his pile of salt and he disappeared, teleporting to a more strategic position. Castiel looked to Millie, who still could not move. She had a helpless expression on her face.

* * *

Kevin was working on the tablet. Though Crowley had said that the spell that pushed the angels out of heaven was irreversible, Dean and Sam were adamant that The King of Hell was lying and the only way for anyone to figure out what was true was for the young prophet to figure it out on his own. He had books, open on their spines around him at the table. He took notes on paper, jotting a few ideas down.

He sighed. It would be easier if it felt like he wasn't alone in this. There was something between Sam and Dean. And all Kevin had were small clues and he knew if he saw them in front of him, he might be able to piece what was going on. Because he was making no progress on the tablet, he tore the notes he had taken from the pad and started on a fresh piece of paper.

The heading was: _Sam and Dean are Being Stupid._

Perfect start.

Before all of this shit happened, he was the model student. Advanced Placement. Played the cello. When was the last time he played the cello? That was before demons and angels and the whole prophet gig.

He cradled his head in his hands, letting his fingers muss up his hair. He looked like a zombie anyways with the bags under his eyes. He groaned. His mother was out there, somewhere, but still, he was worried about the Winchesters.

He was aware of the tenseness between the two. Lies and worry. Deceit and repressed feelings. He frowned and touched the pen to a new line, letting the ink blot before he decided where to start.

And then he started writing everything he knew, even the things that the Winchesters had tried to hide, but he knew the clues.

Sam was always tired. It was in the way he spaced out or dozed off or went on autopilot. And he was losing time. And he tried to hide it, but the way he'd frown and his forehead seemed to get the little lines when he frowned.

Dean was doing things like researching angelic possession while trying to resist the urge to pee on the walls of the bunker. He insisted that Sam's condition was due to the trials. But Kevin thought that that was weird. The Dean he knew would have needled and pressed for answers and cures and…

Kevin stopped writing notes on the paper as it hit him. _It was Dean. He did something to Sam._

* * *

The 'Wisp hit Caoimhe hard. She was knocked off of her feet and pushed to the ground. Castiel watched as she tumbled. The Will-o'-the-Wisp pinned her down, though it was obvious that he had to use most of his strength to hold her. The former angel raised his weapon and approached the two battling Fae.

"Get off of her," Cas said. His gruff voice sounded dark with his threat.

"Your silly blade can do no harm unto me, human squirm." The 'Wisp laughed. He clasped a hand over Caoimhe's mouth to prevent her from saying anything or singing her luring song.

Caoimhe's dark eyes flashed with hatred as she thrashed underneath her adversary. She kicked the leaf litter up with her hooved feet.

"Millie, be a dear and shoot the Glaistig."

And the hunter raised her revolver, her eyes wide in panic. If she shot Caoimhe, then the truce would be broken and she would have to suffer for breaking her part of the contract.

Not knowing what else to do, Castiel ran his blade through the Will-o'-the-Wisp's chest. At first the boy-like creature laughed, but then he spurted out blood. His grip on Caoimhe was weakened enough for her to overpower him and get away.

Millie dropped her weapon and collapsed to the ground. Her breath came out in a shudder. She had been so close to ruining everything.

"Why? Why am I dying?" The 'Wisp put his hands to his chest, the blade still in. The metal itself didn't hurt him, but he could feel his body fading quickly. Being shot at never hurt him. Being exploded and burned and stabbed by anything that wasn't cold-wrought iron had never hurt him before. Why could he feel his life leaving him now? He looked at the weapon hilt-deep in his body.

"You said it wouldn't kill you," Castiel said, confused. He put his free hand on the creature, trying to summon his healing abilities, but he couldn't do that without his Grace.

The Will-o'-the-Wisp laughed and said, "I didn't think it could."

Castiel shut his eyes. "Can you save him?" he asked Caoimhe. "He's dying."

She stood quietly, not saying a single world.

He gruffly said in a way he was sure she'd understand, "You owe me." When she didn't move, he repeated, more sternly. "You owe me!"

She moved closer to Castiel, her cloak and golden hair covered in the detritus of the forest. "First, hon, I'll need something from you," she said in a low whisper. She then put her mouth on his neck. Her breath warmed his skin and he felt her sharp teeth puncture him. He flinched at the pain and felt the suction of her drinking deeply from his blood. And then, he blacked out.

* * *

Kevin focused his research somewhere other than fixing heaven and Dean's mind-meld potion problem. He was trying to find a way to help Sam stay in control and he knew that the strange moments when Sam seemed disoriented and confused were moments when the angel took over. The fact that Sam had an anti-possession tattoo ruled out demon, as was the fact that Dean, even in desperation would never have allowed a demon into his brother.

Now that Kevin was confident that he had figured out what had happened, he knew that, if he wanted the brothers' cooperation, he'd need an answer before he confronted them.

* * *

Two brothers walking outside. Sam followed after Dean, who had taken to nightly strolls. Silence between them. Awkward and heavy. It was as if they could both feel the wedge that had been placed between them.

"Why do you keep following me, Sammy?" Dean asked. His voice sounded rough and deep. He moved by the river, the powerplant that the Bunker was built under loomed behind them both. He picked up a stone and tossed it into the river, watching it skip across the surface. He didn't deserve his brother worrying about him.

"I don't know. I feel like, I should. To make sure you don't roll in poop."

"I'm _fine_ ," Dean said. Two words which have been repeated so often that, by now, they were almost a mantra. He almost convinced himself that it was true. That he was fine.

Sam crossed his arms, eyes focused on Dean, trying to squeeze an answer out of him. Trying to decipher the enigma that had been his brother refusing to admit that anything was wrong with him.

"I'm fine," he repeated again. He looked up at Sam.

The right corner of Sam's mouth pulled upward, but his gaze remained hard and focused. "I don't believe you."

His stare affected Dean so much more now that he was struggling with canine instincts. There was power in eye-contact. And finally, Dean couldn't take it. "What do you want me to say, Sammy? That I have had the urge to pee on every bush from the bunker to all the way here?" he gestured to the bushes around himself. He wasn't done. He had so much to say. "That before bed every night, I have to pace in goddamn circles before I can even sleep. That I hate it when you look at me when I eat because it makes me feel like an animal how damn anxious I get. But you know what Sammy? This doesn't friggin' hurt me. In fact, remember _Hartford?_ You found me because I could _smell_ we were in a barn. And if I had just listened to my instincts before, we would have ganked Vesta long before we got-"

"You knew what she was?"

"She smelled like fire and I was more worried about making sure you didn't think anything was wrong with me to mention that useful fact. But I kept doubting myself. Doubting everything. Just, let's stop trying to fix me until we can fix me. Because this half-measure thing where I just try to not do anything to weird you out is a son-of-a-bitch and just makes it harder." He snorted and turned his face away, but kept his eyes on Sam with a sidelong glance.

Sam's expression was so easy to read. His soulful eyes were full of empathy, almost pity for his brother. "Look, we're trying-"

"Remember when it was okay? In Enid. Nothing bad happened. You let me stick my head out the window. And it didn't mess anything up. Just a small thing and it's... "

"So what? I'm supposed to treat you like a dog?" Sam asked.

"No. Just don't be so friggin' judgmental if I slip up."

"I'll try not to be."

"You better not," Dean said. "You know, I'm going to still try. Just… don't expect me to get better anymore. This is not gonna kill me, Sammy. We need to focus on angel stuff. Not me."

"I get it, okay?" He offered an easy, lopsided smile, though it was still full of concern. He didn't want to give up. But he was tired. It wasn't like he was exhausted, more like it was an effort to stand here, by the riverside, trying to pretend that nothing was wrong with him.

Dean picked up another riverstone. "Remember when we were kids, when Dad took us to the lake to just be kids? He taught us how to skip stones?"

Sam walked up to his brother, so that they were both facing the water, almost standing shoulder to shoulder. "Yeah." He picked up a rock just like his older brother did and tossed it expertly, though it didn't go as far as Dean's. The trials had worn him down. His strength was being shared between two: Himself and the angel who possessed him.

"Three times? Losing your touch, Sammy?"

They could count how often the stones bounced in the moon's reflection in the slow-moving part of the river. All that both brothers could think was that at least they could still have moments like this.

"Let me show you how it's done." Dean picked up a rock. "You have to find a good rock like this one. Flat and round and not too heavy, but not too light." He got into the throwing position. "It's all in the wrist, remember?" Then, he threw a rock, but it landed with a bad angle on the water and sank into it immediately. "Son of a bitch."

Sam laughed. And Dean glowered at his brother.

"C'mon, it's funny, admit it."

Dean's face relaxed. "Okay, yeah; it's funny."

* * *

Lively sat on the floor next to Castiel's bed, where the former-angel was still recovering from getting some of his blood drained. She touched his neck tenderly, where the wound had scabbed over and was healing nicely. She looked out of the window. It was late at night, so late that in an hour or two, morning would brighten the sky.

He had mumbled in his sleep and fidgeted. She had taken off his maroon sweatshirt. At least she didn't have to worry too badly about the blood staining it. His messy hair looked like a tangle on his head. She looked again at the scab on his neck. Once he was awake and ready, she had questions. So many questions.

In another thirty minutes, Castiel woke up to her familiar gray eyes, ash-brown hair, and the necklaces that clinked together as she moved. He rolled away, his head was spinning and he had a splitting headache. It took a few minutes before he got his bearings.

"Hon, are you okay?" Lively asked, standing up.

Castiel attempted to stand up, but collapsed back into the bed.

"Take your time." Lively held out a bottle of water. "Here, take this." She sloshed the water about.

He reached for it, realizing only now how dry his mouth and lips felt. He unscrewed the cap and drank the water greedily. Water spilled on his growing beard. He'd need to shave again, eventually. It had been awhile since the last shave. He glanced up at Lively. His eyes were vivid, though his mind was still foggy.

"Feeling better?"

"Yes." Castiel remembered what happened before he blacked out. He sat up, and touched his neck, where he had been bitten. Caoimhe had promised to heal the Will-o'-the-Wisp. Uncertainly, he looked to Lively and addressed her with the name of the Fae, "Caoimhe?"

She visibly shuddered. "Please, never call me that again. That name was in a past life. Besides, every time people hear Caoimhe, they think of Queef."

"Queef?"

"Never mind," Lively said. "But it's Lively, _please._ "

"Did you heal him?" the former angel asked.

She sighed. "Yes." She tilted her head. "Why do you care so much about him?"

"He was defending his home. Wasn't he?" Castiel leaned forward, feeling more comfortable. "He shouldn't have to die for doing that." He thought of the angels and how they were lost and confused and fighting each other. The ash shadow of broken wings behind them, and some their wings had all burnt up completely and there was no trace of what they used to be. Fighting for heaven, which no longer existed.

"What are you?"

"I'm a man. Nothing more."

"And this is an Angel Blade," Lively stated, picking up the triple-edged dagger that Castiel had used on the 'Wisp. She held it carefully, slightly afraid of it, as it was actually able to kill her. She set it back down. "It's not exactly something humans find in their travels and then there is the fact that you can stay so calm despite what's happened in the forest. And your empathy is not characteristic of a hunter. So, Cas, again: What are you." Not a question, a demand. Lively was curious.

"I was an angel of the Lord, once." He thought back to the days when he was a simple soldier, following his orders, and so sure of his mission. Things have gotten more complicated now that he was an agent of his own free will. "Now I am no angel; my grace was taken from me. I am a man, nothing more."

She smiled and laughed. "Hon, you think an angel without grace is just a man?"

"But I don't have my powers. I can't fly or heal or smite or..."

Lively interrupted him, "Have there been any other angels without their grace?"

And then, Castiel's eyes widened when a single name was stirred up from the mire of his mind. _Anna Milton_. He knew that she possessed abilities without her grace which would be impossible for humans.

He could remember her as his superior in the garrison. She had been a fiercely independent angel. Then, he didn't understand her infatuation with free will and the human race. Now, he did. He absolutely did.

"It was a different circumstance-she gave up her grace. Mine was stolen."

Lively grinned. "So, was she human?"

"Not exactly," Castiel admitted. "Perhaps I should investigate further."

 **A/N: Bwahaha. If you guys only know what I have planned.**


	6. Signalling Theory

**A/N: So, I decided to finally post Ch. 6 here. It starts getting pretty crazy. This chapter is a bit of a breather chapter and was incredibly difficult to write, believe it or not, but it has become one of my favorites. It sort of is the transition chapter between the first story arc and the next story arc. Thank you for reading so far.**

 _Lebanon, Kansas_

That moment by the riverside a few nights ago did little to repair the rift that had been ever growing between Dean and Sam for the past few months. A rift caused by deceit and lies and each brother's obsession with trying to shoulder their burden in order to help the other. Things were still strange between them. But Sam was trying. Dean was trying.

Sam had the keys to the Impala in his hands as he was headed out of the bunker.

"Where you headed?" Dean asked. He lifted his head, his green eyes intent on his taller brother.

"Supply run," Sam said.

"I'm coming with," Dean said as he pulled on his military coat.

Sam paused. "Do you want me to drive or…?" He remembered what had been exchanged between them the other night. He wanted to know if Dean wanted to be the passenger so he could stick his head out of the window, but didn't want to ask the question.

Thankfully, Dean saved him from needing to accept the request of _stop being judgmental_ when he said, "Of course I want to drive Baby."

Sam sighed. Though he said he'd try, he wasn't exactly ready to admit defeat just yet.

* * *

Kevin knew that this was stupid. Beyond stupid, but he needed more answers. He pushed his way into where Crowley was imprisoned.

The King of Hell smirked when he saw the young prophet. He remembered feeling the boy's blood in his veins. It took him to the very edge of being human. Emotions. Feelings. But it also was his best way of escaping these chains.

Kevin gulped under the demon's impassive stare.

Trying to be nonchalant, Crowley said, "Oh Kevin, it has been awhile. And here I thought you simply forgot all about me." His accented voice was deep and oily.

The King of Hell was met with an intense glare from the young man. Hatred, pure and simple. There was a reason why the prophet had come out to meet him.

"When Sam and I came in here the last time…"

"It's been too long," Crowley interrupted.

Kevin cleared his throat and started again, "When we came in here the last time to ask you a question."

"About the irreversible spell, get on with it! I haven't got all day." He smiled. "Oh wait, I do." He relaxed as much as he could with the collar around his neck. "But you don't. Now, I don't think that the boys wanted you interrogating me on your lonesome. Otherwise, one of them would be here." He was feeling the leverage he had and wanting to milk it as much as he could. He might be able to get something in return.

Kevin narrowed his eyes and finally got to the question, "Did you notice anything about Sam?"

Crowley shrugged. "I might have noticed something; I might not have."

"What is it, Crowley," Kevin slammed his hands down on the table, but the King of Hell didn't even flinch. "Did you or didn't you?"

The boy was not threatening at all; he was inexperienced at this interrogation thing. It was almost adorable. "Perhaps I'd be _more receptive_ to share if we had a deal. _Quid pro quo_ and all that." His husky voice was like smoke.

"And what do you want?"

Crowley smiled. "Your blood."

* * *

Dean parked the car in front of a convenience store near a park. Sam glanced out of the passenger's window, watching a man playing fetch with a dog in the grassy area near the playground. The dog was a Border Collie and had a manic obsession with the ball. The animal would go after it, wanton in its reckless abandon, nearly grinding its face into the grass when the ball skittered at an odd angle. Once the dog grabbed the ball, it'd make a beeline back to his owner, who'd take the ball and he heard the shrilly bark of an overexcited dog, begging for the next throw. That will not be Dean.

Sam's attention was brought back to earth when Dean asked from outside the Impala, "Hey, space cadet, you coming?"

"Uh, yeah." He moved out of the vehicle and followed his brother into the store.

Dean was quickly going over the things on the list and picking things up.

"So, you're acting normal," Sam said. "Like, I thought for sure that you'd be all about that ball and that dog."

Dean stiffened up when Sam spoke. He explained, sounding slightly jealous. "It's the dog's ball. Not mine."

"And?"

"Possession is 9/10s the law." Dean said with a shrug. "Some just turn into douchebags about what is theirs."

Sam recalled the pudding cup incident right before Jody had called them up about the Hartford case with Vesta. Dean had growled at him for even daring to take that piece of plastic away from him. And then there was the time that Dean had chewed up his wallet. Though, that time, there hadn't been a growl, only a cold, hard, threatening stare.

"So, I take it you are one of the ones who turns into a douchebag?" Sam said with a laugh. He was attempting humor, but also trying to understand his brother a bit more.

Dean merely grumbled as he tossed a couple of cheap pies into the shopping basket.

It wasn't working.

Finally, he sighed and said. "Let's talk about you, Sammy." It felt almost unfair. He had opened up. Why couldn't Sam do the same? He knew that Sam must be feeling different, being possessed by an entity at different times. Then there were the comments that the monsters had made about him.

"Me?"

"Who else? How you holding up?" _Please Sammy, say anything. Say you need me._

"I'm fine, Dean."

 _Dammit, Sam._

* * *

Kevin drew a vial of his own blood from his arm. He had healed since the last time he had done this for Crowley, though last time, the reasoning behind it was due to the fact that he needed blood to make a call down to Hell. Nobody had helped him then. Kevin didn't see how it would help him now. The young prophet kept quiet, not knowing if he could actually handle interrogating him. He was angry about everything that Crowley had done. But most of all, for killing his mother.

Crowley leaned forward ever so slightly.

Kevin looked uncomfortable under Crowley's scrutiny. He put the syringe on the table, out of Crowley's reach. "Now talk." He kept his words terse.

"Samantha should be dead. There, I talked."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that he's a shambles. Trying to close up Hell tends to have that effect on people."

"How do I know you're telling the truth?"

"Because I've always held up _my_ end of any deal," he replied pointedly, eyes drifting to the syringe on the table, just out of reach.

Kevin's mouth twitched in a frown as he rolled the syringe so that it was within Crowley's reach. The demon snatched it greedily. Kevin watched as Crowley put it in his hands, his eyes subtly alight with hunger. And then he cooled himself enough to restore his normal smug expression.

The young prophet knew he saw something stir in Crowley's eyes. A moment where his emotions revealed relief and desire. And then, he restored his normal expression: Cool and smug. "Are you… addicted to human blood?" Kevin asked.

Crowley's face didn't change or betray anything. Rather than answer the question, he said darkly, "I see you're still palling around with Moose and Squirrel. You'll either die or be tossed away like the other members of their riffraff. I can list off the names if you prefer."

Kevin huffed, wanting so bad to break Crowley's face with his fist. Instead he clenched his hands, shaking with rage at either side of him, and turned around before he made a bad decision. He had killed his mom.

"She's alive and well, you know." Crowley said in his cultured voice. He looked at Kevin as if whether or not his mother was alive was of no importance to him.

Angry, Kevin left and shut him alone in the dungeon.

"Charming," the demon said in the dark.

Crowley pushed the needle into his arm once he was sure he was alone. Blood made him closer to human. He shut his eyes and sighed as he felt that little bit of human blood coursing through his veins. It weakened his power, but he found it wore off if he went too long between doses. However, if he played his cards right, he knew he could squeeze some more doses out of Kevin and eventually the Winchesters in return for information.

And then he'd be able to go back to Hell and fix things with Abaddon. Annoying that a nearly invulnerable Knight of Hell took over like that.

* * *

 _Ardent, Virginia_

Castiel was shirtless. His body was thin and ribby, now. He had definitely seen better days. He looked at his side, where he had been slashed by the Will-o'-the-Wisp. The wound wasn't completely healed, but it was a dried scab that was already flaking away to a pink scar. It had been a little less than a day since he had sustained the injury. He scratched at his itchy neck, where Lively had sucked his blood.

"The process of healing takes so much time," he commented grimly.

His feet had healed completely, no more blisters.

From across the room, Lively tilted her head. "You do realize that you are healing a lot faster than you should be?"

The former-angel glanced over to her. "I am?"

"No shit, Sherlock," she said, playing idly with her many necklaces. "I'm gonna tally that under the whole 'you are not human' thing we were discussing earlier."

"Then what am I?"

She merely shrugged. "There are a lot of monsters that play fast and loose with the definitions of what they are and become something else. You know, many of the self-named gods and goddesses started as something else entirely."

Cas thought of his brother, Gabriel, who took on the persona as the Norse god of mischief, Loki. And then, that time he took in the souls from Purgatory and claimed that he was God. He had been stupid.

"What's up?" Lively asked, seeing his change in body language. There was touch of shame in his face and in the way he held his shoulders.

"Nothing," Castiel lied.

Lively raised her eyebrows, but didn't say anything. Cas was a terrible liar, but she understood when people needed room to breathe. She had lived centuries, just the same as Castiel had. The only difference was that he had lived all of those years with his head in the clouds and she had lived them toiling with the people of the earth. A creature among them, trying to blend in. You learn a thing or two.

Castiel put his shirt back on, buttoning all the way up to the top button. He thought to himself how the rawness of his emotions were inconvenient. He kept thinking about Sam's kind expression and attitude which was equal parts staid and tender, and also the shape of Dean's lips and the dusting of freckles on his face. He didn't deserve either of them.

"When you're healed, we should head out."

Castiel nodded in agreement. "There are things I have to do, too."

"Angel stuff?" Lively guessed.

"Yes. 'Angel stuff' is what it _could_ be called." He grumbled. She had made it seem so insignificant that heaven was broken and God was missing.

"Sassa-Cas," Lively whispered like she was saying _Sassafras_ , except the last syllable was _Cas_.

"What?"

Lively only grinned.

* * *

Kevin was back on his duty of translating the tablet. And it was frustrating, fruitless work. He somehow was still motivated enough to try. Perhaps, he felt a little guilty for going off and doing something which was explicitly not Angel Tablet related. At least, when he was face to face with Crowley, he felt like he was doing something and progress was being made. Except, it was a mission he had to keep from Sam and Dean. Secrets and lies, he couldn't confront them about it until he had more solid evidence to go on.

He touched the mark on his arm where he drew his own blood. If you had asked him to do such a thing a year ago, he wouldn't have been able to. He would have blanched at the thought of it, his hands would have been shaking and he wouldn't have been able to actually puncture himself. He scratched at the dried blood and the site where he had drawn his blood started bleeding again. Idiot. With a heavy, annoyed sigh, he got up to get some bandages from the bathroom.

Kevin pulled out the box from the cabinet and removed the paper before placing it carefully on his arm. He looked at his reflection in the mirror, studying himself.

His face was paler than it had been. The bags under his eyes more pronounced. His lips were chapped from forgetting to drink. He looked awful. He looked so much older as well. He ran a hand through his longer hair. _I'll get it cut. Eventually._

He went back to his workstation and put the tablet away. Just looking at it gave him a migraine. He pulled out another book and wracked his brains to find something that would help the Winchesters. He had been attempting to translate that stupid rock for months with hardly anything to show for it. But following the clues to figure out the solution to Sam's predicament seemed to be progressing. He found a lead in one book and was cross-referencing it to another, working through the layered meanings in the volumes.

* * *

Dean was driving the Impala back to the Bunker. Sam sat with his hand out of the window, his eyes on the road. He made sure to read every sign. He had noticed that sometimes there would be a discrepancy between where they were and how much road he remembered them covering. It happened randomly, it seemed like. But he noticed that it usually happened when he became all too aware of that guilty look that Dean wore on his face or when the awkwardness between them was too obvious.

The younger Winchester hadn't been able to talk easily with his brother for a long time. He noticed the small changes in Dean's habits. They were subtle things. Eye contact and the way his posture changed. The way he tensed when someone approached something that belonged to him. Or his new vices: Namely his obsession with balls and his new oral fixation.

Dean turned to Sam. "You're okay, right?"

And there was also this new obsession with how okay he was. Well, Dean had always been a doting brother. Equal parts guardian and best friend growing up. Their relationship was one that warranted scrutiny before. Brothers closer than most to the point where they had been mistaken for lovers on more than one occasion.

"Sam?" The elder Winchester frowned, thinking that his brother was simply spacing out. "You okay?" he asked again.

"Yes, Dean, I'm okay." Sam replied dryly, rolling his eyes. He wasn't okay. Like Dean, he liked to pretend that nothing was wrong with him. It was how they were raised. You walk it off.

* * *

Castiel sat shotgun in Lively's rustbucket of a Volvo. He was thinking of his new status of not-quite-human and the fact that Lively was absolutely not human herself. His blue eyes were intense on her. He did not yet have the ability to be more discreet with his interest and it wasn't long before Lively gave a sharp sigh.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Why have you agreed to drive me cross-country?"

She shrugged. "You said you wanted to find angel stuff."

He furrowed his brow. "But _why._ From what I know about the Fae, you wouldn't stick around unless-"

"I owe you," she said simply.

"For what?" Castiel asked.

Lively held up three fingers. "For the three slices of pizza."

"But, I thought when you healed the Will-o'-the-Wisp, the debt between us was cleared." He was sure that he'd never understand how the Fairies kept track of their balances, but hoped she'd attempt to explain.

"I took your blood for that." She shrugged. "But, really, Cas? Three slices of pizza is not equal to a resurrection. Especially of someone I'm not particularly fond of."

Castiel tilted his head slightly, with a questioning look in his eye. "You know him?"

"Not exactly. It's just that me and most of the other fairies don't quite see eye to eye. I've garnered quite the reputation for myself. Running away from Avalon to play with humans."

"You are running away?"

"Not really. I'm well hidden, well warded. These necklaces aren't just for a whimsical sense of fashion. Some of them make fairy wards less effective on me among other things. And this one makes it hard for others to find me." She used her hand to pull one of her pendants into view. She dropped the piece of jewelry from her hand to allow it to fall between her soft breasts. No answer, no words of any kind, or anything. Sometimes, talking with Castiel frustrated her. He lacked good conversation skills in general.

Not liking the quiet, she asked. "So, why are you here? Like this? Angels don't change unless they've, well, changed."

"Like I have stated before, my Grace was taken from me." He spoke in his usual, stilted way. There was a touch of annoyance in his deep voice.

"No, I mean. You might be naive, hon, but… you're very human . Well, I mean it's in the way you act. Not very angelic. Angels, from my experience, aren't the most… kind creatures. Most of them have a cold iron rod stuck up their asses."

"I've never-"

" Please do not finish that sentence. Are you always so literal?"

"I see… it was a colloquialism," the former angel said. He sat so still that it was unnerving. "You aren't human either," he finally said.

Lively sighed. "No, I'm not." She tapped on the steering wheel impatiently as she was waiting for a red light to turn at an intersection. After a few seconds, she said, "Now, I know I look very human right now, but that's just my glamor, er, magic. Typically, I keep it as a trick of perception more than an actual transfiguration. Not that I can't do an actual transfiguration. See, hon, I can do more complex magic, too. It just requires…"

"Blood," Castiel said.

"Exactly." She chewed on her lip softly before she added. "My magic is a wicked one, Cas. Craft of the same stuffs the Crossroad Demons use to make their deals come true. You play with the physics of the world. Reverse absolute truths, change laws of nature. The bigger the thing you do, the darker the cost." She was being honest. Castiel could feel her honesty, but he wished he could do more than that. He used to be able to glean the information he needed. That ability had spoiled him: He wanted details. He wanted to know the acts that she was alluding to. They couldn't have been worse than the things he had done. Countless angels slain by his hand. If she knew that, would she help him?

Apparently not wanting a silent road trip, Lively said, "So, you were an angel. What happened exactly?"

He sighed a deep sight, not knowing where to start at first, but then felt his words flow out of him. "I think it all started when I was given the order to pull the Righteous Man out of Hell. As soon as I gripped him, something changed. We shared a profound bond from that moment onward. At first, I stuck valiantly to my orders despite it, but soon, I would choose Dean over Heaven." And he proceeded to tell his story from there on the long car ride.

* * *

Inside his room, Sam was researching mental health. He was afraid that he was going crazy. He also felt that it was necessary to remain strong because Dean was not completely in his right mind. The angel residing inside of Sam hated to see the young man like this. Completely breaking down.

 _What is wrong with me?_ He pondered with so much anguish that Ezekiel could feel the dread forming that empty pit in the body they shared. Tired eyes. Tired soul. He was tired of it all. Sam heard a knock on the door.

"Come in," he said.

It was Dean. He wasn't saying much, but just sat next to his brother in the room that was so devoid of personal effects that it didn't look like anybody lived here. Sam liked to think that he was a guest here.

They were silently sitting side by side before Sam finally broke the silence with an impatient, "What is it. Dean."

Dean deposited a worn tennis ball on the bed between himself and his brother.

"Where did you get that?" Sam furrowed his brow, letting little wrinkles appear in his forehead.

"I found it. In the grass. Out on one of my walks," Dean started to explain excitedly. He cleared his throat in an attempt to tone down his enthusiasm. He was embarrassed, but he couldn't help himself. Sam could read his expressions like a book.

"You aren't getting any better," he said with disappointment. He didn't know why it seemed that his brother's progress seemed to fluctuate. Sometimes, he was very, for lack of a better word, 'doggy', and sometimes he was very much in control that he seemed to be the same old Dean. He promised that he wouldn't judge, but it was so much harder when he actually had to do it. He didn't want to feed into this when he felt like it made his brother less human.

"I get it," Dean said with a sharp sigh. Instead of anger, there seemed to be a sense of guilt which unnerved Sam.

Dean gave his brother a lopsided smile. Was it so bad that he had perfected that mask? He wore it so well that only Sam could see the damage underneath and understood how fake it was.

"Sammy, I'll… go."

It had been so long since Sam corrected his brother about his name. It seemed so trivial to do so when they had more pressing things. And honestly, Sam felt that it would just add animosity to a relationship that was already strained. They tried to connect, but the secrets between them made it so hard.

 _I did not mean to damage your relationship with him._ Ezekiel thought. It was a foolhardy thing, but he knew Sam. The younger Winchester would have just let Dean walk away. He took control of Sam's body, pushing him in the recesses of his own mind. "Dean, wait."

The older Winchester stopped.

"I am sorry."

Hopeful green eyes turned towards him, but immediately that hope was dashed. "Hey Zeke," he said despondently.

"How do you always know when it's me? You don't have the ability to see the soul."

"Because you ain't Sammy."

Ezekiel pondered to himself the repercussions of telling the truth. He let Sam take over again.

When Sam regained control, Dean was gone. He felt freshly ashamed about something, and he could not claim that orphan emotion as his own.

What happened? Sam thought to himself. He was aware that he was missing a chunk of time again. Immediately he looked at the clock. Only five or so minutes had passed. Still trying to calculate what hurtful thing he might have said in the minutes he lost, Sam missed his chance. He picked up the worn tennis ball, still nestled against his thigh, and looked at it. "What did I do?"

And quietly, like a whisper of a thought, the apology ran through his head. _I am sorry. Perhaps, I need to reconsider my course of action…_

It was an alien thought. Not his own. And it scared him. How often had he gone insane? How often had his mind been put together again? "Are you in my head?" Sam whispered softly. "Are you me?"

The entity's thoughts had stopped and Sam only heard his own. Panic and fear and also curiosity as he probed inside his own head carefully. He had gotten too good at hiding the crazy. He had experience, after all.

* * *

Castiel and Lively stopped at a Biggerson's in Kansas. His choice. He had grown fond of the restaurant from a few meals he had here with the Winchesters. They found a table together and that was when their waitress came to the table. He didn't mention that the Bunker was only an hour and a half away. That Dean and Sam were only an hour and a half away. None the wiser, she attempted to chat as she ate, but the subject matter would die before it really took off. Lively was now privy to Castiel's mistakes. She still hadn't told him of hers. However, she stuck by him. And still offered to be his chauffeur and made no indication of when she'd leave him.

The plan was to find another motel room, but Castiel seemed apprehensive about it.

"I don't have a lot of money left," Castiel admitted as he pulled out what he had left in his pocket. A couple hundred dollars.

Lively added tersely. "So there's that."

"We can sleep in your car."

"It's _tiny,_ Cas."

"I can sleep somewhere else, then," he said without missing a beat. He had slept in the trash before. He had slept in a broken down bus in a homeless camp. His body required sleep and he wasn't so picky that he needed a soft place to lay his head in to achieve that.

"I can't have you do that, hon. I'll lean back in this seat. You can stretch out back there." She motioned towards the back seat. She drove the car to a parking lot and Castiel went into the back seat.

The pale moonlight illuminated the area around them. Cars glinted silver and dark from across the lot. She sighed. "Sassa-Cas?" she called, the pet name tender in her voice. He didn't object to being called such a silly name, but he would prefer hearing Dean simply call him the one he had grown accustomed to: _Cas._

"If you hear me, you're supposed to make some sort of indication or something, hon."

"I forget sometimes," he said. He stretched out, wrinkling his plain white tee as he attempted to become comfortable. The weeks of traveling had turned him into all angles. And his hip was jutting into the seat belt buckle. He wasn't going to complain, though. He had been through worse. He deserved worse.

"Make an effort," Lively said in a chiding tone. "You asked the waitress for fifty seven burgers." She pulled out her laptop and the display lit up her face in a cool glow. It was the face that Castiel was used to. Small, demure, plain. Gray eyes. A small mouth. Nothing at all like that fantastic creature he had seen in the woods. Her eyes flickered back and forth as she read the screen.

"Last time I was that hungry, I had over a hundred burgers," Cas replied, too earnestly.

She sighed, a huff of annoyed air. "Yet you are built like a rail. Any girl would want to stab you, Cas." She checked some information. News reports. Strange sightings. She already realized that the man was the most honest creature she knew and did not question his claim.

"Actually it was in the low hundreds," he added in a mumble.

"Sure thing," she said.

He grunted, remembering to make affirming sounds to prove he was listening. Sleep was overtaking his brain. He went to sleep and Lively researched into the night until she was too tired to continue. Then she closed her laptop and leaned back in the driver's seat to rest.

* * *

Morning came and Lively woke up to find the former-angel missing. "Shit," she said. "Where is he now?" She scrambled out of the car and stumbled as she was still quite sleep-addled. Unsteady hooves clicked against the asphalt. To the onlooker, they looked like a normal woman's legs, but she didn't bother to glamour the noise away, as the only ones here, at this early hour were herself and the former-angel.

She walked around her vehicle and saw Cas leaned against the back of her car, sitting on the ground, back against the rear bumper. He was staring at some middle distance, his head canted slightly, his body so still that he seemed more like a mannequin than alive.

Lively crossed her arms and decided to wait for him. She lowered her body next to him, getting comfortable. It was several minutes before he blinked back into existence.

Castiel looked slightly disoriented, but spoke. "We're going to Wyoming. Something is going to happen there. Some kind of… bar? I think. It was hard to listen in."

"What were you listening to?" Lively asked, genuinely curious.

"Angel radio."

"Oh, and that just makes it _crystal clear,"_ the fae said as she rose to her feet. She was annoyed that he didn't realize she didn't know what exactly angel radio entailed, but she could guess and decided to run with it. "So, a bar in Wyoming. The best we can do is start on the trip, right?"

* * *

Sam found Dean waxing the Impala the next day. Except his brother was wearing an old gas-mask he had found in the Bunker's storage. He never had to do that before. "Dean?" Sam assumed the smell was too sharp for his keener sense of smell.

Dean stopped working and his head tilted up towards his brother, and then there was that frustrated snort that seemed magnified by the gear that he was wearing. He looked back down at the work he was doing, buffing out the wax to bring the Impala to a careful shine. The action was so loving. This was his _Baby_ after all. And, despite the gas-mask, this was such a Dean thing that he was doing. His expressions were barely visible, but Sam could imagine them.

"Can I help out?"

He mumbled something while wearing the mask which Sam could not understand.

"Uh…"

He gave Sam an eye roll so obvious that it could be seen through the eye pieces. Dean pointed at the tires. They were clean, but Sam had watched his brother enough times to know what he wanted. He picked up the chemicals and tools he needed as he hunched over the tires. They worked well together. Sam had helped his brother in this a few times before-when Dean had been too injured, for example. In another life, Dean would probably be a mechanic. Perhaps he'd simply focus on restoring old cars. Sam thought quietly that he'd be a lawyer if it wasn't for everything that happened.

They worked quietly. Even if Dean wasn't wearing a gas-mask, he still would have been quiet. He was focused, engrossed in the task, and that left no room for silly jokes or banter. It felt normal between them for once and Sam was thankful for that.

When the Impala was finished, Dean went over to Sam's work. He pointed at the tires and mumbled something else.

"Yes, I sealed in the shine, too," Sam said. His shirt was dirty and he was sweaty, putting a lot of work.

Dean gave him a thumbs-up.

* * *

Once inside the bunker, Dean removed the mask and sighed. His hair was messed up from wearing the stupid thing. He didn't comment on it. And Sam didn't dare comment. He saw how grateful his brother was for not needing to explain himself when the explanation was obvious. When there was nothing they could do right now to help him. But it was looming like an elephant in the room. Sam couldn't ignore it. He chose to address it in a way with a bit more tact.

"Hey, Dean. We can probably buy a more modern one," Sam said. "They make them better nowadays." He thought it was elegant. Addressing the whole thing while not bringing attention to the reason why Dean needed it.

"Uh, yeah." His head still seemed out of it; like he was thinking through a fog before his words could work.

"I'm sorry about last night. I know I promised about…"

Dean interrupted. "It's okay. No chick-flick moments. Remember?"

"Gotcha. Dean, if you need anything…"

He looked down at his feet. "Let's hunt," he said abruptly. Impatient. He seemed antsy as his eyes flickered to Sam's pocket.

"You know the ball is in my pocket," Sam said.

Dean silently nodded.

The first thing that Sam thought was that his brother was absolutely not ready to go and hunt something.

"Now, before you say anything, I've always been… more myself after a hunt."

"Fine," Sam said, but only because he realized how true it was. He wanted to see if Dean was right. That hunting brought him back to his right mind. And if it did, why?


	7. Trigger Stacking

**A/N: Continuing the story. I still have more chapters on AO3. I also have side stories there now. Lots of plot thingies happening. Welcome to the second story arc. From here on out, it gets a little crazy.**

Castiel tilted his head as he sat in the passenger's seat. His eyes stared at nothing. He was concentrating, straining to listen to the streams of communication which were blinking in and out of his mind. The words were in Enochian and trying to tune into them reminded him of trying to find the clear station of an ornery radio. They skipped and crackled, words of other languages interwoven in the sentences. They were thick with codes within codes, but Castiel was familiar with some of them. He had led a garrison once. He was once a soldier for heaven himself and that was where these angels had drawn their training from. His blue eyes refocused as he brought himself out of it and consulted the map of Wyoming on his lap.

"What is it?" Lively asked.

"They are speaking in codes," he stated.

"Don't worry your little head about it, hon."

Cas frowned. "My head is of average size for my height and frame."

"And you're still worrying. How about we rest up in a motel somewhere, Sassa-Cas?" Before he could say anything, Lively added, "And I am not sleeping in this car again. Besides, I'll owe you a motel room then. Three slices of pizza and a room."

* * *

 _Creed, Colorado_

Lively stood with her arms crossed. She wore a high-waisted pencil skirt with a pale blue blouse. The thick-rimmed glasses and her hair pulled back in a tight bun finished the professional look. She had her suit jacket folded in her arms. Her lips were lusciously dark. And she had dressed herself a lot faster than it was taking Castiel. She paced in front of the gas station bathroom, impatiently.

They had been keeping their eyes and ears on the news. Both human and angel radio. And this was their last stop before they headed to Caribou. The massacre had been all over the news and the angel was sore that he hadn't made it in time.

Soon, Castiel emerged. The suit was a nice one that they picked up at a thrift store. It looked worn and didn't fit perfectly. It was slightly loose in the pants, which needed hemmed up so he didn't trip himself up. And the sleeves. Whoever earned the suit before he bought it had been taller. In addition, he had put the tie on backwards, somehow.

Lively giggled. "You spent all that time with those boys and they never taught you how to put on a tie properly?" She reached up and redid the knot and did so perfectly. Castiel stood perfectly still as she pulled the knot against his neck. She reached up and neatened his hair with a quick run through of her cool fingers. She straightened out the wrinkles in his clothes. All of these small adjustments happened within a handful of minutes. Long enough to vex Castiel, but not long enough to take an inordinate amount of time. "Small touches complete the picture," Lively explained as he huffed in annoyance.

"I fail to see what these 'small touches' add to the credibility of my appearance." Though his hands did not move, you could hear the finger quotes around the borrowed phrase. "We need to get there. Now."

"Oh, Sassa-Cas." Lively rolled her eyes and dragged him into the bathroom. "Look." She gestured towards the grimy mirror.

Cas straightened his posture when he saw his reflection. He looked professional. She was right. He looked different than the frumpled, starved, tired man that left the gas station bathroom the first time before she fixed him up. After Lively adjusted a few things, pushed back his newly cut hair, and fixed his tie. He moved his arms and found that the sleeves were perfect length now. The shoulders properly fit as did the length and width of the slacks. In fact, his suit looked completely new. And that changed everything.

"It was nothing a good tailor couldn't do, hon. And if you're keeping tally, that's for the motel room last night. So, let's hit the road," Lively said.

* * *

Dean was driving at night, heading to Caribou, Wyoming. Sam was in the passenger's seat. It was a long drive, but Sam had found something on angels. And as much as Dean wanted to humor Ezekiel, as the angel was the one who was pretty much holding Sam's body hostage, he couldn't turn down the case. And Ezekiel was, of course, going to understandably pissy about it once he found out.

Dean didn't even need more than a quick glance over to know that Sam wasn't Sam anymore. It was a slight change of posture, in the still way he sat, and even in his too-even breathing. "Hey Zeke," Dean said.

The angel had stopped asking how Dean knew. He was sure that there was something about his brother that he couldn't emulate.

"How's Sam?"

"The healing is going well," Ezekiel stated plainly.

Dean's expression brightened up, but he kept his eyes on the road. "So, he's better?"

"Yes. Sam is much improved. It shouldn't be much longer now."

And the hunter deflated. "Okay, you know you said the same thing to me last week, right?"

Sensing he may have said the wrong thing, Ezekiel explained, "As I told you when we met–this will take time."

"Okay, well, go then. Heal. I'd like my brother back, please." Dean's gruff voice was full of impatience and frustration.

"I must say, Dean, I'm very uncomfortable with this whole trip. Investigating crimes involving angels – or anything involving angels – puts me, and therefore, Sam, at risk." He said that, to remind Dean the reason for the reason he had warned against angel hunts.

"Family business, Zeke. Sammy would get suspicious if we _didn't_ take this job."

"Then I trust you will be discreet." Most of the reason why Ezekiel even allowed Sam and Dean to go this far was because he knew that the two of them needed something like this.

It finally dawned on Dean or perhaps Ezekiel's lack of resistance tipped him off. "Wait, if you know where we're going, that means you've been listening in. Are you, uh, are you hearing everything between me and Sam?"

Ezekiel wondered how much he should reveal. Should he share that he knew just how far gone Dean was at this time? That the only reason he was sane enough to drive was because he had seen him marking the area around the Bunker when he thought Sam wasn't looking. Though technically, Sam wasn't looking-Ezekiel was. Or that he had taken the tennis ball from Sam's coat pocket in the morning. Or that Sam knew about that, but didn't say a thing about it. The relationship between the two brothers was shifting as Dean's behavior got more and more erratic.

"I pick up a few things, here and there," Ezekiel answered as honestly as he could. "Dean, I am sorry about all of this. I never wanted you to grow apart."

"Yeah, yeah."

"I know that you've been struggling lately."

"I'm peachy," Dean said. "Just get Sam better. Then we'll worry about me."

Ezekiel sighed. It was as if he could do nothing right.

"Hey Zeke…" The tone was of apology, but the angel didn't stick around to let Dean finish.

Sam's eyes flashed blue as Ezekiel receded. The younger Winchester continued chatting right where he had left off, "—you know, I was gonna say, it seems like it's getting really quiet out there, you know? Not a peep from the angels, even Buddy Boyle goes off the air and stops recruiting for them."

Sam noticed that the air between his brother and himself had changed. It was serious and was heavy with apology and regret.

Dean cleared his throat and attempted to fix the situation. Ezekiel hadn't made it easy for him. It didn't occur to to Dean that he might have hurt the angel's feelings. "Obviously calm before the storm," the older brother remarked.

"Uh, yeah," Sam said, unconvinced by Dean's behavior. Obviously, time had passed again. He had said something that he shouldn't have. Something that hurt Dean. Couldn't his brother see how unfair it was to keep whatever his other self was saying away from him. He looked out of the window for any sort of clue.

 _Fort Collins, 50 miles._ He stared at it. How long had he been out of it? A small, sharp sigh left him. Disbelief. Perhaps he should tell Dean about his issue. If he could be out of it for nearly forty minutes (judging by how quickly Dean normally drove), then that would not be good for the hunt. People might die.

Sam was so afraid to mention it. He was raised to bury his issues. On more than one occasion, their upbringing was described as being raised as soldiers, but really, they were raised as survivors. It was ingrained into them that being stoic and pretending nothing was wrong was the best solution until they were equipped to deal with the issue. But what if the issue was that his mind was broken? Sam was aware that Dean was going through a similar struggle and that bringing it out in the open had repaired some of the rift between them.

Perhaps he was simply afraid that he really was losing his mind.

"Sam? See something interesting?"

"The sign awhile back said 'Fort Collins, 50 miles.'"

"Yeah, so?"

"It means… I'm missing time, Dean. I don't remember the whole trip. The last sign I saw for Fort Collins, about five minutes ago tops, said it was 100 miles away."

He saw the muscle in his brother's neck tense and then relax as he swallowed a wad of saliva. Nervous. "Don't worry about it, Sammy. It's probably because of the trials. Or Vesta. She did a number on you."

Sam sighed, his cheeks puffing out as he did so. He let himself speak. "I… uh. It's been going on for awhile." And the words that went unsaid was that Sam was afraid it was getting worse. He distinctly heard a voice in his head two nights before. "Look, I don't know if we should do this hunt anymore."

Dean whimpered. _Why couldn't you open up before this trip, Sammy?_ "I need this Sam." The desperation in his voice was heartbreaking. Sam knew he wanted to run through that theory. That hunting quelled the symptoms of his predicament. "We'll just look around and play it by ear."

Sam sat back in the seat. "But if it even _smells_ like trouble…"

Dean smirked at the jab in Sam's sentence. "Bitch."

"Jerk."

* * *

 _Lebanon, Kansas_

Crowley leaned back in his chair. He could feel his growing humanity mingling with the darkness in his soul. He pondered the definition of being a demon. How much that had changed him. He wondered the state that Hell was in. His closest knew that this was all a part of his contingency plan. That there was power in making allies and building trust in the most unlikely of places. Calling in favors and planning ahead while cultivating a careful reputation was how he made it this far.

He saw the lights flicker on. Kevin was back in the file room. He had been here a lot more often, looking over old Men of Letters cases and cross-referencing them to things he read in the old tomes and on the angel tablet.

He heard the lock on the door unlatch and then saw the haggard prophet enter. He folded his hands and raised his head as regally as he could despite the warded iron collar around his neck. Uncomfortable.

"Crowley," Kevin said the demon's name like it was a curse.

"Kevin," the demon responded with warmth. "It's like we're besties already. Hasn't even been a week since we saw each other last."

The prophet revealed a syringe already full of his blood. He saw Crowley's eyes light up, saw the hunger in them. He smiled. If the King of Hell was addicted, then it would make it easier for him to get information. The prophet said one name, "Sam." It was easy to know what he wanted.

"This again?" he said in his accented voice, clearly bored.

"Do you want it or not?"

Crowley eyed the blood and then shrugged. "He's possessed."

"By an angel, yes. I know," Kevin said.

"Took you long enough to sort that out," Crowley said; his voice like smoke.

"I want to know who is possessing Sam ." The prophet said. He knew that most angels were not going to be friendly to the Winchesters and that narrowed down who the possible angels could be. "Is it Naomi?"

Crowley laughed and, honestly, there was a hollowness to it that betrayed the sadness he felt for the loss of her life. "She's dead." It was harder to separate himself from his emotions when he had this much human blood swimming in his veins.

"Then who?"

"I am the _King of Hell_! " Crowley yelled, slamming his hands on the table and causing Kevin to jump. "I don't know what every bloody angel is up to!" Crowley collected himself almost instantaneously, seeming to have taken great glee on causing the boy to startle.

"Give me _something_."

"Fine. In Heaven, there is a prison. In the prison are all the angels who couldn't do as they were told. The spell that I've heard so much about kicked _all_ of the angels from heaven, right?" He spoke casually. "So, it follows that Moose is probably harboring a fugitive."

Kevin's color drained at that realization. He'd have to research to confirm what Crowley had just said.

Crowley opened his hand. "So, I gave you your _'something.'_ I will now take my prize."

Kevin held out the syringe for Crowley to take. The King of Hell had a smug look in his eye as he went to grab for the blood. Kevin hated seeing the conceit of the victor in Crowley's eyes. And that incensed the young man and he pulled it out of Crowley's reach.

"Playing hard to get?" he asked.

"My mom," Kevin demanded.

"Ah, right. She's alive."

"Tell me where she is!"

 _"Quid. Pro. Quo."_ Crowley emphasized each word, spitting them at the prophet.

"Where is my mom!"

Silence.

"Where is she?"

Crowley said nothing.

"Tell me!"

He only gave the prophet a smile which wrinkled the corners of his eyes. "You're so cute when you're angry, Short Round."

Fuming, Kevin yelled, "Where is my mom!"

"And why should I tell you a single sodding thing? You've showed me you aren't willing to be honest."

Pissed and knowing he was losing his control of the situation, Kevin left the room. His heart pounding, the syringe still in his pocket. He emptied it in the bathroom sink, coloring the porcelain red and then pink. Not even his blood. It was fake blood. He was trembling. _Did Crowley know I was lying the whole time? Was he lying the whole time?_ He couldn't get the information and he didn't know for sure if his mother was alive or not. Crowley's words couldn't possibly be honest, and he had tried to pry something out of the King of Hell. Some sort of location, but nothing came out.

He quieted his rage, but it was there, hot under his skin, sharp in his mind. Crowley had destroyed everything of his old life. All he had left was the Angel Tablet and the Winchesters.

* * *

Kevin readied himself at the desk. He piled the pertinent books on the desk and opened up his laptop. He placed everything in very specific places on the dark wood. He took out a notepad and a pen, flipping through his pages, past the epiphany he had about Sam being possessed, over potential spells and sigils that he had written down, and a few things he had jotted down about the angel tablet. Volumes and passages were written down in the margins of his notepad.

It all looked like ramblings and gibberish, but he had a system. It had become like a world he slipped into and his thoughts were laser focused on his task until what had transpired between himself and Crowley was so small that it stopped existing. All that mattered now was the task at hand. Compartmentalizing. Kevin forgot if that was a healthy way to manage stress. Probably not. Nothing he did was healthy now.

* * *

 _Caribou, Wyoming_

Lively stood cross-armed behind Castiel as he bent down to investigate the ash wings on the floor. Broken wings, sparsely feathered. Matching the crime scene with the photographs, it appeared some men didn't have that shadow silhouette of wings at all, but there was still ash on the floor near where their bodies had been. So, it was safe to assume that all of them had been angels. They had grouped here and had been killed, most likely by other angels. The police murmured, uncomfortable with the crime scene.

Lively stepped carefully, her hooves barely touching the floor as she gingerly moved forward and put a gentle hand on the former-angel. He did not move either away from or into her touch. He stood too still to be human, she told herself.

"Cas," she said sweetly, quietly, in her old language. _"You couldn't do a thing. We got here as fast as we could."_ Her words bounced slightly and sounded breathlessly flowing from her mouth. She knew he understood her. Angels were polyglots, after all.

 _"You don't understand,"_ he answered back. His tongue wasn't used to the phonetics of the words he summoned forth, and he spoke haltingly. _"If I had my Grace, I would have made it."_

He flexed the muscles in his shoulders and back. Obviously he was missing his wings. If he had had them, perhaps he could have just appeared here and prevented it. Talked with the angels. Then he could have tried all of the potential locations instead of just riding as a passenger in a fae's rusty Volvo until it was too late.

He turned away and started speaking with one of the officers who had been there at the moment they opened the door and saw the bodies. He was focused on solving this hunt and figuring out his part in stopping the violence.

She shook her head, a few strands of her ash-brown hair falling out of her bun and framing her face. This was going to be a long day. She left the door to look at the scant evidence outside.

* * *

Sam and Dean showed their badges to the officer at the door of the Round 'em Up Bar in Caribou, Wyoming. "Ah, so there's more of you guys? We got two of your agents already," the officer commented, which caused the brothers to look at each other.

The single glance was a silent, split second conversation.

Sam: _Hunters or Feds? Perhaps we should bow out?_

Dean: _Whoever it is, we'll see if they need help with this case, first._

The brothers tucked their badges back into their pockets. They turned to face front again and headed through the door, mentally preparing for either a hunter in over his head or an agent in over his head.

Dean moved through the threshold first. His nose caught the scent of ash, and blood and ozone like a freshly finished storm. He scanned the room, but found his gaze stuck on an officer who was glaring at him. The man had something against the feds coming in and taking his case. The cop gaze hardened, territorial. Dean felt a spike of aggression rising to challenge the officer in his stare-down. _Dial it back, Fido._

Dean took control of his mind again, quashing his instincts. He forced his eyes to look at the floor. He stepped carefully, glancing idly at the bright yellow markers at the scene of the crime. Broken chairs scattered about. A pool game left unfinished. The bodies had all been moved so all that remained were the ash wings. A forensics guy was collecting samples. He heard the flash and snap of a camera as the photographer took several pictures for evidence. Through the din, Dean could hear the various theories, gossip, and even the warm chuckle shared as someone made a dark joke. He couldn't focus on any one stimulus. It was overwhelming.

"Dean?" Sam called quietly. He touched his brother's shoulder. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Dean lifted his gaze again. This time, he focused on a man who was talking to one of the officers. _That must be one of the Feds._ He saw only the man's back. He was reminded immediately of Castiel. Perhaps it was the man's dark hair. The way he stood: As if he were consciously trying to take up a human-sized amount of space. And then, the man turned as he gestured towards one of the bodies. He lifted his eyes towards the Winchesters and Dean felt his heart drop into his gut. It _was_ Cas.

He couldn't help himself. What he was feeling was intense. The thinking parts of his brain had gone numb as emotions washed over him. His throat felt tight and the smallest whimpering sound escaped it. Sam squeezed his brother's shoulder, _are you okay Dean?_ But Dean leaned hungrily into his touch. It kept him grounded; he felt the overall tension leave his body.

Castiel now excused himself from his conversation with the older officer by saying quietly, "Ah, my colleagues."

Dean braced himself as Sam stepped away from him to greet Castiel. In a voice that sounded reserved for co-workers on friendly terms, equal parts professional and familiar, Sam said, "Agent." He clapped his hand against Castiel's arm.

Castiel smiled at the contact. "Agent," he echoed, enjoying being in on the game for once.

His eyes turned towards Dean. And this was when the older Winchester became acutely aware of the former-angel's stare. In his new state, the intent in a person's eye contact was magnified. "Uh Cas, what the hell are you doing here?" He somehow maintained his cool and his words flowed well enough.

Cas leaned forward, conspiratorially, "I still have that badge you gave me."

It was like Dean couldn't see his face. Only those eyes, twinkling.

"Uh, yeah. What the hell are you doing?" It came out harsher than he wanted, but it was because it was taking everything not to just leap up and touch Cas. Dean watched Cas's expression fall as he repeated his question. And Dean wanted to hide in a corner. Cower and cringe and grovel in order to escape the impending punishment. The man in him would have taken it without this feeling. The animal in him wanted to escape it. _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry._ It repeated in his brain. An earworm of an apology. Dean opened his mouth to say something else, but he couldn't make the words work.

"Dean?" Cas called and caused Sam to look towards his brother.

"Are you okay?"

Dean was frustrated. He was doing mostly fine until Cas showed up. He could have finished the case without a hitch and prove to Sam that nothing was wrong with him. He just had a few quirks now. And that would be that. Instead, he walked away, heading out without an explanation. Cas automatically made a move to go after Dean.

"Cas, wait." Sam grabbed his arm and the former-angel's eyes lingered on Dean's back, yearning to fix whatever it was that he had done here to cause his coldness. Kicked out of the Bunker, stranded without money, clothes, nothing to his name. Cas didn't understand what was going on with Dean and Sam wasn't sure if it was his place to explain because Sam himself didn't fully understand it all. "Dean is going through something."

There were a few cops snickering, believing that Dean's sudden departure from the crime scene was due to being squeamish.

* * *

Lively was attracted to where the Chevy Impala had been parked. It was near her Volvo and made her dinky car look even more horrible in comparison. There was a new shine to the Impala, as if it had been freshly waxed. The car was obviously well-loved. She couldn't say the same thing about her Volvo, but she had bought the damn thing for a couple hundred bucks and it ran mostly on a miracle. A piece of junk when she got it four years ago and brought it to life with her magic.

She hunkered down, squatting to look at how finely the car had been detailed.

Dean approached her, stopping nearly ten feet away, only seeing her gold hair, done up in a tight bun. He noticed the pale skin of her neck, so pale he thought bitterly it was as if she were as colorless as a corpse. She had an odd smell to her. Equal parts earth and river. And the tang of blood. However, she had just come from a crime scene that smelled like blood. Her attire hinted that she might be the other FBI agent. Though Dean had neglected to ask Cas if the other agent was with him or was an actual agent.

"Hey Miss, looking at my ride?"

His words caused her to startle a little. She stood up. "I don't think anybody can get my car to shine like this," she said with a laugh, still looking over the detailing.

"I'm sure-"

"It's the Volvo there."

He looked at the old, beat-up car near the Impala. It definitely had seen better days. He whistled. "Definitely needs work done."

Dean was thankful for the distance he had between them. Not because he was shy. Lord knows Dean Winchester was not shy. Rather, he was afraid of losing control again.

Lively turned to face him. "I used to call the car Willit," she said with a beaming grin. "Will it start, will it stall, will it run? Though, now that it's a lot more reliable-" She stopped talking when she noticed the animosity in Dean's eyes. Her smile faded as the joke died.

"What the hell are you?" He drew his gun and pointed it at her, ready to shoot. She didn't know how, but he could see her through the glamor. She could feel his scrutiny on her face, on her body. Her pale, gray-tinted skin. Her dark, bestial eyes, and golden hair. And, of course, her hooves.

* * *

Sam was worried about Dean and one glance at Castiel told the younger Winchester that the former-angel was just as worried. He hung back, waiting for Sam to explain what he meant when he said that Dean was going through something, but it was never expanded on.

"He was unable to speak," Castiel noted. Dean wasn't one known for being at a loss for words.

And Sam could only think that Dean had not been ready for this case. That it was stupid for the both of them to make it out this far. When he was losing time, going insane, and Dean was, apparently, losing his humanity. What the hell were they doing out here, on a hunt? Sam sighed and then said, "C'mon Cas, let's go."

Castiel followed Sam outside of the bar.

* * *

They moved to the Impala when they saw Dean and Lively next to each other, speaking. Dean didn't look too upset at the moment. "He's talking with Lively," Castiel said.

"Lively?"

"That is what she calls herself," Cas explained. "I was confused at first because it was an adjective."

And then, they saw Dean draw a gun on Lively.

* * *

"Dean!" Deep and gravelly, Castiel's voice was familiar and did strange things to Dean. _What's happening to me?_ The emotion bloomed in his head and he couldn't pinpoint what he was actually feeling. _Fear? Anger? Joy? Anxiety?_ Trying to decipher it was like trying to stare at the sun to count sunspots.

"Put your gun down." This time, Sam's voice.

"She's a monster," Dean said, unable to keep his tone quiet as he went more and more on edge. "Look Sam, Cas. I don't know what kind of whammy she's hit you with, but I see her. She's not human."

"It's okay, Dean." Sam walked up to his brother and carefully disarmed him. He looked behind his shoulder and noticed that, miraculously, none of the officers seemed to notice. They passed by undisturbed. He put a hand on Dean's shoulder, remembering how it had calmed him when they were in the bar. Instead, his brother shrugged him off, wired and intense as a new thought echoed through his head: _What if I'm losing my mind?_

"I'm sorry, Miss." He eyed the badge now in her hand, " _Agent_. My partner is going through something. I think he's not ready for-"

"She's with me." Castiel got between Dean and Lively so that he faced the former. Cas assessed the situation while Dean attempted to look around the former-angel's body, nostrils flared and green eyes intense.

 _Get out the way, Cas._ The words were not said, but Cas could feel them.

Cas brought his hand up, towards Dean's forehead, a habit that he still hadn't lost despite being human for months. And put two fingers against the hunter's warm skin, trying to get him to collapse and sleep to just calm the situation down.

And he couldn't accomplish that. That angelic power was completely gone. What happened instead was just as effective: Dean leaned into Cas's fingers and bowed his head until the former-angel's hands slid into the hunter's hair. In this closer contact, Cas could feel a desire that confused him. _Pet me._ Nothing sexual about it, but simply the plaintive demand of an animal that had grown far too attached to people, that merely wanted to be touched and loved upon.

"Okay," Castiel said. He ruffled Dean's hair tentatively and watched as the hunter unwound and relaxed, his eyes shutting, and a content sigh leaving him. He could read his friend's mind. It was a strange mix of satisfaction, comfort, and shame. A desire not to speak of this that Castiel chose to reverently uphold because he didn't want to Dean to reject him again.

Dean pulled away from Cas finally, huffing under his breath. Castiel raised his arm to stroke Dean's hair again.

"Cas! What the hell!" Dean dodged his friend's fingers and his heart was hammering, but he felt like himself again.

The former-angel looked confused. "You wanted me to continue," he stated.

"I sure as hell did _not!_ "

* * *

Sam was looking out at the police officers, who were busy at the crime scene. Had they not seen the strange things that were going on here?

Lively could guess who these two tall, well-built men were. _Winchesters._ She didn't know much about them, but Castiel highly regarded both of them. From what Cas had told her, they were dangerous, especially if one of them already saw her as a monster. She thought she could sidle away while Dean was distracted by Cas. She took a sidestep away from the brothers, towards her own car.

"Don't even think about it," Dean said, darkly. He bared his teeth. He drew a knife.

Lively gave a sheepish, closed-mouth smile, not wanting to offer Dean a peek at her fangs. She held her hands up in a gesture of peace, but it had no effect on the hunter.

"Dean!" Sam said sharply. "Stop it."

"Oh come on!" Dean said, weapon still brandished. "She's got _hooves,_ Sammy!"

Sam glared at his brother, "That's not what I see." All Sam saw was a petite woman with soft, delicate features. Gray eyes behind askew glasses. Ash-brown hair tied in a bun. She looked nothing like a monster, but Sam wasn't sure. Dean had shared a few nights ago that he could smell that Bonnie Futchko was Vesta. He wondered if he should trust his brother, who was presently glowering at Lively. "She's with Cas," Sam reminded his brother.

"Friggin' hooves," Dean muttered under his breath, finally sheathing the knife. He was sane enough now to think things through. It was slightly unnerving that it took Castiel's touch before he was back in his right mind again. He thought of the feeling again, wanting it again, and glanced at the former-angel, who shifted uncomfortably.

Clearheaded, Dean noticed Cas's bony wrists and how his face was thinner. The angles sharper and his eyes, though they were still bright and expressive, were tired. And guilt filled him. _This_ happened to Cas because of his choices, and still he was able to look at Dean without a shred of anger.

"Well," Lively said, "That was exciting." She gave a thin, tired smile. "Cas?"

He stood still. The air between the four was so tense-a stand-off between Dean and Lively. Mistrust on both ends. Finally, Sam said, attempting to defuse the situation, "How about we leave for the motel while you two to finish up here?" He couldn't have himself and Dean stay here. Not when there was something seriously wrong with the both of them.

Dean grumbled, but Castiel and Lively agreed.

* * *

"So, that was the Winchesters?" Lively asked when the brothers left the scene, Dean driving the Impala-he insisted. She and Cas started back to the bar to continue the investigation.

"Yes. Though, they usually are more agreeable." Cas turned his head to watch the Impala disappear down the road. Dutifully, he started back to the bar to complete his investigation, just as Dean and Sam told him to. A small smile played on his lips.

"Cas? Hon?"

He paused for a moment.

"You do realize that there is something seriously wrong with both of them?"

"I know." But Castiel would be a liar if he said he didn't enjoy the way Dean melted to his touch, even if his mental state was disconcerting. "But they want us to finish here."

"You don't have to prove yourself to them."

"I, uh-"

"I'm observant, remember?" She followed after him, but noticed his steps had slowed.

Castiel could only think of those days when he was homeless, picking through trash, because he had been kicked out of the Bunker. He had lost everything and Dean made no effort to help. And he thought that it was because of what he had done: He had done terrible things and made terrible mistakes. "You're wrong, Lively." Cas had to show the Winchesters what he could do, even though he was no longer an angel of the Lord.


End file.
